


It Makes The World Go Round

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Money, Paranoia, Prostitution, Secrets, Suspense, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:34:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3081485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Down on his luck, Sakurai Sho moves into some new digs after a chance encounter with a man he can’t resist. But perhaps he should have been a bit more curious about the people he’s now living with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by the movie “Shallow Grave,” and the title is from the song [Money](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rechCN3FAk) from the musical Cabaret.

The music is just as terrible as he remembers it being in this bar. The sound system’s ancient, can’t handle the bass. He used to save this place for last on the nights when he was desperate enough to try going out. Tonight he came through the door at 8:00 when only the bartender and a sad middle-aged crew, a few of them in half-assed drag, were inside.

It’s a bit more lively now, the trains will stop soon enough, and Sho’s been going through Scotch and sodas like a madman. The bartender has a sixth sense, and Sho knows he’s been watering them down simply so Sho doesn’t fall off his stool and crack his head open. Nice guy.

Today marks one full year, and Sho’s decided to give up. The problem, of course, is figuring out what his next steps are. But that’s for another time, another day, and he shakes his glass to get the bartender’s attention. He looks around, the bass throbbing painfully, and he makes a mental note to read some online reviews for moving companies that he’ll probably forget come morning.

The drag crew is long gone, replaced with people who’ve done more of a crawl through the neighborhood that night, not giving a shit about the bad music or the watered down drinks because this is their final stop, the make or break. Finding someone to go back with or slinking off alone in embarrassment. Sho remembers nights like those so vividly. But he’s been alone so long it may as well have been someone else.

Scanning the dance floor, some people are already half into each other’s pants, and Sho’s too drunk to be embarrassed on their behalf. Good for you, Sho thinks. Good for you. He takes in colorful clothes, too much jewelry, too much hair gel. The music changes up, one trashy dance hit blending into another, but then he’s there, someone who looks too good for a place like this. Too good to still be out and about, unattached for the evening.

Average height and lean, big eyes, big smile. Model face except for some acne scarring on his cheeks he hasn’t bothered to hide. The crowd parts for him, and it’s like his hips are leading the way. Sho can’t help but watch him move, sliding around in a pair of sinfully tight jeans. Every movement smooth, intentional. He owns the room, easily.

Some awkward fellow with glasses tries to grind up against the hot guy’s ass. Something he probably saw in a movie once and thought “go for it.” The ease with which the hot guy manages to move away from Glasses and his friendly pelvis impresses Sho deeply, although his amusement fades when the guy catches his eye and heads on over to the bar.

Sho turns back around. He came here for a reason - to get shit-faced in lieu of spending yet another night at home. It’s better to feel sorry for himself here than in his apartment. But it’s too late, and the stool beside him scrapes along the floor. He’s got cologne on, this guy, a woodsy smell, and Sho focuses on the bar top when the guy’s tapping his hand against it, trying to get the bartender’s attention. He’s got a thick silver ring on his finger, a chunky metal cuff on his wrist, and Sho wishes they hadn’t made eye contact. Fancy, confident, just Sho’s type unfortunately.

He asks the bartender for Jack and Coke and gives Sho a too-friendly poke in the arm. “Hey.”

Sho stares at the ice cubes, the liquid in his glass. “Hey.”

The bartender returns with the guy’s drink, but he doesn’t go anywhere. Instead he seems to lean closer. Maybe he’s trying to make it look like he’s here with Sho, just in case Glasses tries to press his luck again. 

“Hey, you okay?”

Sho’s not, but he nods that he is anyhow. The hell was he thinking, coming here instead of getting trashed at the little bar around the corner from his apartment building?

“Don’t look okay,” the guy says, seeing right through him. He swivels on the stool, sitting sideways in hopes that Sho will do the same and chat with him.

Sho shrugs, knowing that his body language has to be screaming for this guy to piss off, but Sho’s also been known to be attracted to the obnoxiously persistent.

“You dance?”

“Not if I can help it,” Sho replies, sliding his glass along the bar top, listening to the ice cubes jostle.

“You were watching me.”

“I was watching everybody.”

He can sense rather than see the guy’s grin. “You’re a little old for this crowd.”

This does get Sho to turn, taking the guy in up close. His big smile’s bigger than he’d even realized. His face is a combination of big - thick brows, wide-set features, the bright eyes. Put together though, these disparate big parts, he’s handsome. Too handsome for Sho. “How old do you think I am?”

His new friend takes a long sip of his drink. “Thirty-seven.”

Sho groans, more exaggerated than he realizes. “I’m not thirty-seven.”

“Thirty-six,” the guy says, the big white teeth of his tugging briefly, enticingly on his lower lip. This reveals a small spot, a small mole, just underneath. “And a half.”

“Try again,” Sho complains this time, eyes starting to cross as he tries to connect the dots. The mole under the guy’s lip, its matching partner just above. There’s even one right on his lip. Where else might he have some? “Try thirty-two. At least for another month or two.”

The guy nods. “Happy birthday.”

They finish their drinks in a few minutes, and the guy pulls a credit card from his back pocket. “I got you.”

Sho protests, swaying on his stool a little. He’s not getting coaxed into blowing this guy in the alley, no matter how hot he is. “No, don’t…”

The guy’s hand wraps around his wrist. “You look miserable. Let me get this, and I’ll put you in a taxi.” His voice is serious, demanding. And just as hot as the rest of him.

Sho gives in, and the guy’s surprisingly gentle with him as they leave the bar, head toward a taxi stand. Sho’s had much more than he should have, and he finds himself awkwardly leaning against a newspaper box, staring at this stranger.

“Didn’t have to buy my drinks, I’m sorry…”

“Seriously, are you going to be alright?” The guy’s tapping a pack of cigarettes absent-mindedly against his hip. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you care?” Sho blurts out, grasping onto the stupid metal box.

The guy holds his hands up innocently, clutching his cigarettes. “I was just fucking with you. About looking thirty-seven. You don’t look thirty-seven. Look, just…” He rolls his eyes. “Most people don’t go to a bar like that for the drinking atmosphere.”

“What do they go there for?” Sho asks. “To pick up other people’s tabs out of the goodness of their hearts?”

A taxi rolls up, the driver popping the back door open for them. They don’t say anything to each other as they both get in, and his companion calls out an address. Sho doesn’t think to offer his own because as soon as his back hits the seat, he’s somewhere else, tilting his head to look up at the man helping him out. He’s staring out the window, tapping his fingers against the glass.

As the taxi moves along, Sho realizes that he’s crying and doesn’t actually know how long he’s been doing so. Was he crying in that bar like an idiot? He’s not sure if the guy’s a Good Samaritan or planning to steal Sho’s wallet and leave him somewhere. He wants to believe, though, that this guy’s just looking out for him. Maybe they’ve both been burned one too many times.

It’s so quiet now, away from the club, that he all too easily fades out for the night.

—

Sho wakes up on an unfamiliar couch, and his head’s killing him. But it doesn’t matter because there’s a person sitting on the floor watching him, corners of his mouth quirking in amusement as soon as Sho’s got his eyes open.

He recoils, back against the couch cushion, clutching a blanket against himself. It smells fresh, a very cheerful laundry detergent.

“Good morning,” the guy says. Sho vaguely remembers the guy in the jeans, the generous man with the dark brows, but this isn’t him. This guy’s small, thin, sitting on the floor with his knees bent and his arms wrapped around them. There’s a look in his eyes that Sho isn’t sure he likes.

“Morning,” Sho says anyway because he can only wait for an explanation.

“Leave him alone.”

It’s the voice from last night, the one Sho fell for so easily, and it’s him. It’s the face and the moles and this time the hips are encased in some gray flannel pants instead of jeans. He’s got glasses on now, his dark hair less controlled. He sits down in a chair opposite the couch that Sho’s on. His friend gets up, patting him on the top of his head like a pet before disappearing. Roommate, Sho wonders, or more?

“Did he wake you?”

“No,” Sho says, “but he was staring at me when I woke up.”

“That’s because he’s a fucking creep.” The guy’s more hesitant now than he was last night. Sho realizes that his shoes and coat are gone, but an awkward feeling under him reveals that his wallet is still in his pants pocket. “You weren’t talking, I couldn’t get an address from you so I figured you could sleep it off here.”

Sho’s ashamed, staring at nothing. He hasn’t done anything like this before. At least not that he can remember.

“You want some coffee?”

Unable to respond verbally, Sho just nods. When the coffee’s arrived and Sho’s slowly working his way back to functioning, the guy gets the ball rolling. He’s Matsumoto Jun, he’s thirty-one, and he’s been between jobs since his company got downsized under new management. “I’ve had a lot of reasons to want to spend my Friday nights drinking like you were, so I guess I just…”

Rock bottom, that must have been the look in Sho’s eyes while he sat at that bar and caught Matsumoto’s eye.

“Sakurai Sho, and I just passed my first full year out of work.” He hugs the blanket in his arms, deciding that strangers don’t need the whole story. “Can’t maintain my apartment much longer, so as you can see, I was in that bar for a reason.”

Matsumoto’s dark eyes widen in surprise. “Well, how’s this for a coincidence? We’re looking for a fourth roommate here.”

Over the course of that Saturday morning, Sho learns that maybe there’s a place for him here. It turns out Matsumoto’s brought him to a house, a four-bedroom share house originally intended for students. Its current occupants, however, are Matsumoto, his rude awakening roommate Ninomiya who works at a net cafe, and someone they call Keito-san, who is rarely home but still chips in on rent so they don’t kick him out.

“A fourth person,” Matsumoto explains. “It’s what we’ve been needing for a while now. To cut costs down.”

“You don’t know me though,” Sho says. “And we met…”

“At a gay bar,” Ninomiya says from the chair where he’s curled himself up comfortably. “I know about Jun-kun, and it’s not a big deal if you are too.”

He sees Matsumoto flush in embarrassment. Don’t say things like that so casually, Matsumoto clearly wants to scold him, instead switching gears to talk about the house, about the rent payment. Ninomiya interrupts, sitting in that chair of his like judge, jury, and executioner. There’s a shrewdness to his demeanor that the calm, cool Matsumoto lacks. 

He asks Sho questions rapid-fire. Where did you work? How will you be able to contribute to the rent payment if you’re unemployed? Are you single or attached? Would you bring people over here? Do you have any strange hobbies we should know about? Have you ever been arrested before?

Sho finds himself gripping his coffee mug tighter and tighter, and Matsumoto’s kind enough to rescue him. “We don’t need his fucking life story. We need his rent money,” Matsumoto says bluntly before turning back to look Sho in the eye. “I can understand if you don’t want to live with this guy. He’s watched a lot of detective dramas.”

Ninomiya’s grinning like a cat toying with a mouse. It doesn’t surprise Sho now that they’ve struggled to find a fourth housemate. But Sho’s only plans that day are to go to his parents’ house, that big fancy house, and get on his knees to beg for a chance to stay in his old room until he gets his life sorted out. He’s set to agree to anything, even his mother’s wish to see him married off.

But maybe he can put that off for a little longer. Sho sets the mug down on the scuffed up coffee table, rubs his eyes. “Can I see the room? Get the tour here?”

“You still haven’t answered if you’ve been arrested before,” Ninomiya reminds him.

“I haven’t,” Sho says, and he’s telling the truth. After all, there’s a difference between being arrested and coming very close to it.

—

Where most places make you wait, there’s no limbo surrounding Sho’s move into the share house with Matsumoto, Ninomiya, and the enigmatic Keito-san. Only a week after his drunken display and couch crashing, Matsumoto personally shows up to help Sho move. Sho can see the questions in his eyes when he looks around the apartment Sho’s being forced to give up. It had always been a bit of a reach on a teacher’s salary, but Sho had been counting on a transfer to a different school in a few years, a private school that would pay him what he was worth.

Well, things don’t always go according to plan.

He’s got everything boxed up and labeled, and a moving crew has taken the larger items over to the house already. Sho has a car, a hatchback he’d gotten in college and only just finished paying off a few years prior. Matsumoto and Ninomiya don’t have a vehicle, so Sho’s willingness to share it made him all the more appealing a housemate. There’s a carport just beside the house that’s apparently sat empty ever since they moved in.

Sho lifts a box of clothes, and Matsumoto’s got his arms out to take it. “Thank you,” Sho says. “You don’t even know how much you guys are saving me.”

Matsumoto, so confident that night in the bar when they first met, seems to have cooled off a bit. “I’m sure you’ll find a new position soon.”

Sho has no reply to that, if only because it’s none of Matsumoto’s business. He simply smiles and they go up and down the stairs. Matsumoto’s athletic, taking the stairs two at a time back up to Sho’s apartment, and Sho wonders if he’s been issued some sort of challenge. By the time they’re on the last of Sho’s boxes, when the car is stuffed so full with his shit that Matsumoto will have to sit with a box on his lap, he’s exhausted.

He shuts the door, finds Matsumoto leaning against the hood of the car when he comes trudging down the staircase. Sho’s legs are throbbing from the unnecessary extra exertion, but Matsumoto looks fresh and happy for the exercise. Sho jingles the keys, trying to speak without his breath heaving. “Efficient, you are.”

“Thought you’d appreciate it,” Matsumoto says, like he really does know how happy Sho is to put this place, this unfulfilling and distressing chapter of his life, behind him.

Sho says nothing, getting into the car. It’s across town, so Sho will have new train schedules to memorize, new convenience stores to track down and evaluate, the basic orientation things that he actually enjoys figuring out when it comes to living someplace new. 

“You were a teacher you said?” Matsumoto asks, breaking their silence when they get stuck in some midday traffic.

Sho grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “Yeah.”

“That what you plan to keep doing?”

“Been a year,” Sho says. “Thought by now I’d have found something, so I don’t know.”

“I know the feeling.”

He looks over, and Matsumoto’s looking out the window again. “Does Ninomiya-san know of any openings where he is?”

Matsumoto chuckles. “You don’t strike me as a part-timer, Sakurai-san.”

“I don’t strike myself that way either, but here I am, unemployed for a year. I’m at the point where I’ll do anything to have some money coming in.”

“Well, he doesn’t talk about work at home much,” Matsumoto admits. “For all I know, he’s lying and doesn’t even work at a net cafe.”

Sho’s a little puzzled. “How long have you and Ninomiya-san been living together?”

“Since I got laid off. He and I went to high school together. Met up at a class reunion. Of course I’d been attending said reunion to try and do a little networking since I’d just been laid off. Found Nino instead.”

The nickname seems almost affectionate, and Sho wonders how close they’d been in high school. “And he doesn’t tell you anything about work?”

Matsumoto shrugs. “He keeps to himself. He can be in your face one minute, nosing around your business, but then he’ll go retreat in that room of his for ages.”

“Mysterious type, huh?”

“I doubt it,” Matsumoto says with a grin. “I think he’s just playing games or jacking off most nights. No mystery there.”

Sho takes this in, nodding a little uncomfortably. The traffic starts moving again, and it’s a while before Sho keeps the conversation going.

“What about Keito-san then? What does he do?”

Matsumoto clams up in a way that makes Sho nervous. He looks over when they reach another red light, and Matsumoto is fidgeting. The man who came right up to him in that bar, all eyes in the room on him. He’s probably going to bite his thumbnail clean off, and Sho tries to convince himself that maybe the guy just hadn’t heard his question. He tries again.

“Matsumoto-san?”

He blinks a few times, and Sho almost winces at the too-loud cracking sound as Matsumoto bites his nail. “I dunno,” he replies quietly. “Guy’s always gone.”

This is such a lie that Sho’s keen on turning the car around. It’s so unlike him, being this impulsive. Packing up his entire life to move in with strangers. Strangers who are increasingly strange. Sakurai Sho, who used to plan everything in advance, to the minute. He let this smooth talking guy pick him up at his most vulnerable, and here he is a week later, all set to move in with him and he doesn’t know a damn thing about him - or his other housemates.

“Guess I’ll just browse the job boards as usual,” Sho says, trying to sound as oblivious to Matsumoto’s distress as he dares. Ninomiya, who stays in his room. Matsumoto, who was perfectly content to let Sho join them without question. And this Keito-san, the never around Keito-san. What has he gotten himself into?

—

The first few days go so smoothly that Sho manages to forget the awkward, ominous feeling he’d experienced in the car with Matsumoto. Maybe Sho was just reading more into things than necessary. His room is perfectly adequate and clean, and there are two bathrooms in the house. He ends up sharing with Ninomiya, who doesn’t keep more than a toothbrush, a razor, and a cheap bottle of combination shampoo and body wash in there. Matsumoto was correct; Ninomiya keeps strange hours, and he usually emerges from his room only to leave the house, presumably for work, or to heat something up in the microwave.

Matsumoto goes out most nights, dressed in tight slacks and smelling so good Sho almost wants to follow him, like an abandoned puppy desperate for scraps. He never asks Sho or Ninomiya to go with him, instead just grabbing his keys and wallet and saying a casual goodbye while he pulls on his shoes. During the day he’s in and out of the house, most of the time in a suit and probably off to a job center.

Sho spends those first few days in the living room with the TV on low, laptop open on the coffee table as he looks for things to apply for. From the vantage point of the living room, he’s able to get a better sense of how things work around here. He learns that Matsumoto labels his food in the refrigerator and that Ninomiya eats it anyway. He learns that Ninomiya doesn’t care if the others can hear his porn through the door. He learns that Matsumoto’s bathroom is sacred ground, an arrangement of hair care and skin care products, vitamins and supplements, a pharmacy’s worth of allergy meds and ibuprofen and cough suppressants. Sho has used the toilet in there once and hasn’t returned for fear of knocking over some bottle of face cream that an unemployed person probably can’t afford.

Keito-san has been home once, and Sho apparently slept through it. The house is all on one level. The living room, entry hall, and the kitchen in front. Sho and Ninomiya’s bedrooms, their bathroom in back along with Matsumoto’s room, his bathroom, and at the end of the hall, Keito-san’s room. “He got home after 4:00,” Ninomiya says on one of his rare appearances, leaning uncomfortably over Sho’s shoulder to read the job posting he’s considering. “But he was gone again by 7:00. He’s that way.”

The first few days become a week and then two, and Sho feels as though he’s finally a bit established. He’s even managed to get a call back, a small company looking for a bookkeeper. To celebrate this minor victory, an interview set for the following week, he emerges from the house.

He meets Aiba at a family restaurant halfway between their houses. It’s been weeks since he’s socialized, and Aiba’s face today isn’t as full of pity for him as it’s been for the last year. Their desks faced each other for five years, and Aiba Masaki is probably one of the best teachers left in the place. Not the type to coop himself up in a lab, Aiba went into biology teaching to inspire a new generation to get excited about science, and he largely succeeds. He’s popular with students and faculty alike.

He’s also the only person from the school who still talks to Sho. 

Right now he’s poking around at a hamburger steak that should have been cooked longer. Knowing Aiba though, he’s too kind to send things back and will plow through them as they are. Aiba’s kindness wasn’t able to save Sho’s job, though, even though he tried his best. Sho will always be grateful for that.

“You’re back to shaving I see. You look better with that round baby face,” Aiba says with a wry smile, his gleaming teeth that have won over a few too many teenage female biology students. Aiba pointed out a student message board to Sho once, proudly noting that he was voted “hottest” teacher in the school. He hasn’t mentioned that in a while though, but Sho can objectively admit that Aiba’s a good looking person. His wife, Sho reminds himself with a glance to Aiba’s wedding band, is a lucky lady.

Sho strokes his chin. “I’ve always shaved.”

Aiba sees through his shit in an instant, always has, and moves on from his hamburger to his green beans. “Right.”

Aiba Masaki knows a Sakurai Sho who went weeks without shaving, months without a haircut after he was dismissed from the school. Aiba Masaki knows a Sakurai Sho who stopped doing laundry, wearing the same rotation of three t-shirts. He tried throwing money at the problem, offering to help Sho pay his rent or to take him out to eat, but Sho’s never allowed it. Only a month earlier, Aiba had been convinced there was room in his tiny ass apartment for Sho to move in and to hell with his wife’s objections. Aiba’s faith in him has never wavered, no matter what he’s known about Sho, and it’s a link he doesn’t dare lose.

“So what’s going on with that other housemate guy?” Aiba asks, switching gears. Sho thinks Aiba might actually be the most excited about Sho’s housing change-up, and he’s asked dozens of questions that Sho can’t necessarily answer yet.

“I’ve never seen him.”

“Maybe he’s invisible,” Aiba teases. “Or like a chameleon. Like, he’s always at home but you don’t know because he’s blended in with the wall or the sofa. You know, there’s this creature called a mimic octopus. It can do so much more than change colors, Sho-chan. It can change the shape of its body and…”

“Aiba-kun, I’m fairly convinced Keito-san is not a camouflaging animal.” Ninomiya cracked the door open for Sho once, just to give Sho proof someone technically lived in there. There wasn’t much more than a single bed, neatly made, and a cheap-looking chest of drawers. Keito-san had no visible personal effects inside there.

“Still don’t know what he does for a living?”

Sho shakes his head. “The others don’t even know.”

That’s not entirely accurate. Sho can see the way Matsumoto visibly relaxes when he wakes in the morning and Ninomiya tells him that Keito-san hasn’t dropped by. But any time Sho’s tried to bring up the topic of Keito-san, Matsumoto and Ninomiya have dodged it with the finesse of shitty actors in a late-night drama.

“Maybe he’s government. A secret agent,” Aiba suggests, stabbing a green bean. “Or maybe something more sinister.”

Sho tries to smile, thinking about Matsumoto’s relief when the man’s absent. “Sinister? Come on, it’s probably just a married man who likes a night or two away from the wife here and there.”

Aiba’s still suspicious, but that’s most likely because he’s very happily married. The world’s longest honeymoon stage, some of the other teachers used to gossip about him. He can’t fathom being away from his wife for much longer than an average workday. “Becky thinks he’s a serial killer.”

Sho would object to Aiba and his wife speculating so freely about his new life and his new housemates, but he supposes it’s harmless. “I think we’d know if he was a serial killer, Masaki…”

“Pfft,” Aiba protests, “I read a book about it once. How they often end up being someone you’d never suspect, just the guy next door.”

“Well if he does any serial killing, he doesn’t do it at the house, and that’s just fine by me.”

Aiba doesn’t meet his eyes, sipping from his water glass. “If you ever change your mind…about living there, I mean, you just have to let me know.”

“Thanks,” he replies, rolling his eyes. Because living with a nosy married couple is preferable to living with three seemingly unattached men who keep to themselves.

“So anyway,” Aiba says awkwardly a few moments later, finally turning the topic away from Sho’s new living situation. “Principal Takahashi has new hair plugs, and he thinks we haven’t noticed yet.”

—

He’s somehow managed to fry himself a couple eggs without burning the kitchen down. It’s after 1:00 in the morning, and he’s alone in the house. Dinner is an afterthought after six solid hours perusing job boards and getting lost in his own paranoia, envisioning employers giving him shit about being so stingy with personal references on his applications.

The kitchen’s an odd space in the house. There’s no sign that Keito-san has so much as a dish sponge in the place, and Ninomiya leans toward bringing home food or making things that don’t require much more than a boiling pot of water or a beeping microwave. Matsumoto largely owns the space with his neatly-labeled leftovers, spice rack, full set of pots and pans. His stuff is a lot nicer than Sho’s, and some nights in the living room while he’s job hunting he can smell Matsumoto making the most elaborate dinners for one in human history. 

As Sho borrows the black pepper shaker from Matsumoto’s spice rack and quickly returns it, he wonders if he could somehow convince the guy to make something for two people once in a while. Then again, Sho isn’t quite sure what he could offer in exchange that Matsumoto would want. Crippling dependence, maybe, he thinks with a grin. Sho likes to eat, but he sometimes wishes that fully cooked meals could drop from the sky without him having to expend any effort.

He eats his lame eggs and imagines Matsumoto in the too tight jeans from that first night, standing by the counter chopping vegetables or wielding a wok like a professional. Some people have filthy sexual fantasies about the people they’re attracted to. And here’s Sho envisioning Matsumoto slipping a long noodle from a cook pot between his perfect lips to see if it’s al dente. “Sho-kun,” he’ll say like it’s normal for him to do so, “dinner’s ready.”

Sho’s cell phone rings, and he’s surprised when the caller ID says it’s Matsumoto. They exchanged numbers out of necessity, back when they were coordinating Sho’s move. Maybe he’s psychic and knows Sho was in here using his pepper. He’s called to scold him for it. Sho answers on the second ring because he’d seem too needy and pathetic to answer on the first.

“This is Sakurai.”

There’s quiet for a moment, and then he hears breathing.

“Matsumoto-san?”

“Did I wake you?”

“No. Just having a late dinner.”

Matsumoto pauses again, and Sho senses that he’s had to force himself to make this call. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but I was hoping…” He exhales, long and shaky, enough to send a shiver down Sho’s spine. “I was hoping you could pick me up and bring me home.”

The guy goes out and comes home almost every night without incident. “Are you okay? Has something happened?”

“If I text you the address, could you please come?”

Because Sho’s curiosity is almost equal to his attraction, he agrees immediately. Matsumoto still offers no explanation, hanging up and sending off an address in seemingly record time. It’s a fairly ritzy neighborhood, though Matsumoto’s directed him to meet him at a park.

The night is cold, and Sho rubs his hands together while the car warms up. His cell phone directs him across town, past high rises and nightlife and holiday lights. He doesn’t even have to get out of the car because Matsumoto’s already getting off a bench and shuffling over as soon as he pulls up. He’s limping, and when he opens the door to sit down, Sho can’t help but switch on the overhead light. Matsumoto recoils, turning away, and Sho switches the light off hurriedly.

“Sorry.” Even in the quick burst of light, Sho was able to see that Matsumoto’s eye is bruising and he’s also taken a punch in the mouth. A split lip that looks painful as hell. And that’s just the visible stuff. “Are you alright?”

“I want to go home. Please.”

Sho pulls back onto the street, heading away from the park. At every stop light he looks over, seeing how Matsumoto’s taken off his shoes, pulled up his legs onto the seat like a little boy. He’s got his arms wrapped around himself. He’s made himself as small as he can. Sho doesn’t ask any further questions, instead putting on the radio and letting some celebrity’s dull late night radio show make conversation for them. 

When they pull in at the house, Matsumoto mutters a quiet “thank you, Sho-san” before putting his shoes back on and getting out. Sho can’t help following, seeing how Matsumoto’s struggling to walk without showing weakness. He drops the shoes in the genkan with a noisy thud, feet scuffing the floor as he heads for his bathroom. Before he can get the door closed behind him, Sho’s pushing it back open.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.” Matsumoto’s already opening his medicine cabinet, fumbling with a roll of gauze. He dabs at his lip, wincing in irritation.

“Should ice your eye,” Sho says, hovering in the doorway like a worried parent. 

“I know.” Matsumoto pushes past him, heading for the kitchen to do just as Sho’s advised. If he notices that Sho’s left his half-eaten plate of eggs behind, that he dropped everything to come pick him up, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he grabs a kitchen towel and fills it with ice cubes, groaning a bit when he finally presses it to his face.

“Who did this to you?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody,” Sho repeats, having no appetite for his abandoned dinner. “Nothing” happened and “nobody” beat the shit out of him. “So what then, you walked into a wall or something?”

Matsumoto gives him an angry look, a “don’t be so fucking dense, of course someone hit me” kind of look that just makes Sho more upset. He only knows Matsumoto Jun in bits and pieces after these first few weeks, a strange amalgamation of facts and conjecture. What he eats, when he sleeps, what he wears when he goes out at night. Sho is learning, and quickly, that he still doesn’t know a god damn thing.

He scrapes his eggs into the trash and dumps the plate in the sink, turning the water on just long enough to give the thing an insufficient rinse. Sho shuts off the faucet, leans back against the sink as Matsumoto nearly collapses into a chair, leaning on his elbow and pressing the towel of ice to his face in a stony silence.

“There was a student,” Sho says, “and I was not going to pass her.”

He can tell that Matsumoto’s listening, even though he’s turned away.

“She cut class all the time, never turned in assignments, and still thought I was going to pass her. So then when grades came out, she was surprised. Most students, they probably think ‘Ah Sakurai’s just an asshole’ and move on with their lives, but not this girl. Wealthy, well-connected. Used to getting what she wants.” 

Sho somehow isn’t even surprised that he’s telling Matsumoto, unsolicited and for no good reason other than the hope that if he opens up maybe Matsumoto will do the same.

“So she comes up to me after school one day, alone, and tells me if I don’t change her grade she’s going to tell the whole school, the teachers, staff, everyone that I was having sex with her.” He chuckles bitterly, remembering the crazed look in her eyes, the strange victory he’d seen in them. “She says she’s going to tell them all that I made her get an abortion, that I’m the worst piece of shit in the universe.”

He’s nearly shaking with the telling of it, regurgitating everything he’s spent a full year now trying to move on from.

“She’s bluffing, I think, so I tell her no. She’s got no proof anyhow. But I’m so sure of myself in that moment, so sure that she’s just fucking with me, that I tell her something I shouldn’t. I tell her she’s a spoiled little bitch, and that I’m not the last person in her life who’s going to tell her no.”

Matsumoto lets out a quiet snort, and Sho finds himself grinning despite himself.

“Turns out she was recording me, and that’s what she brings to a faculty meeting. Again, there’s no proof that I slept with her, and she was a known problem child at the school. But the words were mine, and no matter how awful she was, there was no going back after I said something like that to her. To a student, any student. I could have told them, you know, could have said there was no possible way I’d have slept with her because…” He shuts his eyes. “Well, of course I didn’t say anything of the sort. I apologized for causing such a problem and before I could resign, leave with an ounce of dignity, they fired me on the spot.”

Sho steps away from the sink, sees that Matsumoto isn’t holding the towel of ice in quite the right place. He finds himself lifting the towel from Matsumoto’s grasp, their fingers brushing as he moves it an inch or so over. Matsumoto’s eyes are dark, hypnotic, and Sho steps back before he lingers too long.

“So I didn’t deny it outright or offer my embarrassingly valid excuse. I’ll probably never teach again. They could have called the cops, had them arrest me first and sort it out later, but given her family connections, it was easier just to get me out of there. And she had no reason to continue her threats if I was out of her way.”

He’s a bit startled when Matsumoto asks a question. “Did they change it?” 

“What?”

“Her grade,” Matsumoto says quietly, looking at Sho with seemingly genuine concern. “Did they change her grade?”

Sho laughs, nodding. “Oh yeah. They changed her grade.”

It feels surprisingly good, telling someone, letting someone else share the burden he’s been carrying for a full year. Aiba knows, of course, knows Sho couldn’t have possibly done what the girl had accused him of, but it’s not like Aiba has mystical time travel powers that could have sent him back to keep Sho from opening his trap and speaking the way he did to a sixteen year old girl. But Matsumoto Jun can probably understand it all in a way Aiba simply can’t.

Matsumoto gets to his feet a few moments later, startling Sho a bit when he reaches out a hand and squeezes his arm. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and Sho doesn’t know if it’s in reaction to Sho’s sad story or for all the secrets he’s still keeping himself. But before Sho can gather the courage to respond, to ask Matsumoto one more time who’s hurt him, he’s already heading out of the kitchen, his bedroom door closing behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re cutting back hours at the net cafe. Seems like the one Ninomiya works for is a chain, and it’s in trouble. A quick search online reveals that several locations have closed in the last year. Market’s over-saturated, it seems. So as the days continue, Ninomiya’s home more often. 

It’s Sho in the living room with his laptop and Ninomiya in his bedroom with the door shut and his TV blaring. He’s caught a peek inside here and there when Ninomiya goes to the bathroom, heats something up in the kitchen. Cords and cords and cords for every game system known to man.

He looks in on Sho from time to time, seems fascinated by his job hunt. If Ninomiya was smarter, Sho thinks, he’d be looking for a new job too. Ninomiya offers criticism, sitting behind Sho and reading over his shoulder. Sometimes he’s munching on something, biting into an apple and telling Sho his application would be stronger with a different word choice here, a different verb there. Sho takes his advice half of the time. He’s gone on one interview so far in person and had two more calls, but still no takers and Sho’s starting to wonder if all his applications are shit. If he’s on a blacklist somewhere.

Matsumoto’s wounds have mostly healed, and to Sho’s surprise, Ninomiya was highly concerned about them. That first day after, he’d overheard a muttered conversation taking place in the kitchen, the usually cold and off-putting Ninomiya admonishing Matsumoto for “not hitting that asshole back” and for not going to the police. His voice almost begging, pleading with Matsumoto to tell him everything that happened. Everything else about Ninomiya seems polished, rehearsed. A witty remark ready to go any time Sho opens his mouth. But Sho wonders now if it’s mostly an act and that Ninomiya’s far gentler than he appears.

It’s mid-afternoon on a Thursday, and Ninomiya sits down beside Sho on the floor, leaning his head against his shoulder. Sho would be annoyed, but it’s not the first time Ninomiya’s done this and he’s learned that it’s not to be mean so much as Ninomiya just touches. Sho’s seen him fuss with Matsumoto before, picking a stray hair from his shoulder or nudging him for seemingly no reason. For someone who shuts himself away for hours at a time, he’s not shy about invading personal space.

“What’s this one?” Ninomiya asks, and Sho almost enjoys the body heat beside him. It’s not like anyone else has much interest in touching him. Sho shoves down the happy thought of Matsumoto coming within five feet of him. Since that night, he’s been avoiding Sho desperately.

“Customer service,” Sho replies, scratching his neck. “Over the phone. Call center.”

“Ugh,” Ninomiya remarks, irritated. “Don’t do it. I did that once.”

“If I can handle teenagers, I can handle this.”

“Is there really nothing else you’re good at?” Ninomiya asks, leaning away if only to grab Sho’s glass of water and help himself to a sip of it.

Sho gives him a dirty look. “Thanks for your support.”

“Sho-chan, I’m just messing with you.” How quickly he’s allowed himself to be familiar, though Sho’s not about to start calling him “Nino” in return, if only because he knows how much that would please him.

Ninomiya leaves him alone after that, but within a few hours he’s back in the living room, only halfway interested in the movie Sho’s watching. Matsumoto comes home for at least an hour, showering and changing before leaving again. As soon as the front door closes, Ninomiya sees nothing wrong with grabbing the remote and turning the TV off.

“Hey, I was watching that,” Sho protests.

Ninomiya stares at him, his rather small fingers worrying at a loose string at the bottom of his t-shirt. “Did Jun-kun tell you what happened that night? You brought him home, he told me that much.”

Why Ninomiya’s asking him and not Matsumoto, Sho doesn’t know. “I brought him home, but it’s not my business.”

Ninomiya’s smile is rather sad. “You don’t even know where he goes, do you?”

“Again,” Sho insists, “that’s not my business.”

And honestly, it’s not. Nor is it Ninomiya’s. But Sho has, of course, been curious about it. He’s fairly certain Jun doesn’t have a job, but his clothes are nice. He always smells like expensive cologne. Gambling, Sho’s figured. Explains why he can afford the nice things he has without having a regular job. Maybe he’s a compulsive, an addict. It would explain why he goes almost every night. And if he loses, if he can’t pay up, it makes sense that some underground gambling house would have their bodyguard beat him up. 

“Oh Sho-chan, I’ve been trying to get him to stop,” Ninomiya admits. “I was actually glad you moved in, to tell you the truth. I thought maybe together you and I…well, that maybe it would be more persuasive coming from you.”

Does the guy want to stage a fucking intervention? “I barely know him. Or you. How on earth could I get him to stop…whatever it is that needs stopping?”

Ninomiya looks embarrassed. “Well, he never brings anyone home so I figured there was something about you he trusts.”

Now it’s Sho’s turn to feel nervous. “What about Keito-san? Why do you need me to get involved?”

“Keito-san doesn’t give a flying fuck about any of us. He’s an envelope of cash and not much more,” he says. “Look, I’m worried about Jun, and this was not the first time he’s gotten hurt. But I want it to be the last. You sit here all day and apply for jobs like a good little boy. Make him do the same. Hell, have him go be a telemarketer with you.”

“It wasn’t telemarketing,” Sho interjects needlessly, growing concerned about the expectations Ninomiya has for him. “Look, if Matsumoto-kun has a problem, he has to want to help himself.”

Ninomiya’s expression turns to confusion. “What?”

Sho sighs, grabbing the remote control back from him. “If he has an alcohol problem or a drug problem or a gambling problem or whatever…”

“Sho-chan, he’s…” His eyes go so wide, it’s comical. “Sho-chan, he picked you up at that bar, I thought…”

Sho feels that the room’s temperature has gone up several degrees in the last few minutes without him realizing it. “It wasn’t like that…”

Ninomiya’s fingers find his wrist. His hand is ice cold. “He has sex with people for money. Ever since he lost his job, he’s done this. You had no idea? You and he didn’t…”

Sho recoils from the man’s touch. “What? No!”

A gambling problem, Sho’s told himself. But why would a gambling addict care so much about what he looked like? It’s been there, staring him in the face for weeks. The cologne, the clothes. The bathroom overstuffed with creams and hair gel. That magnetic pull Sho’d felt from the second he laid eyes on him. And then the night he’d called Sho, desperate and alone. How he’d pulled away from Sho’s questions, had curled up in the car. How stupid could he be?

“Sometimes they don’t feel like paying,” Ninomiya says, like it’s so obvious a thing.

Where Sho expects to feel disgusted or furious or misled, he doesn’t. He’s jealous, if only for the first few moments. How many, Sho wonders. How many have there been? If Sho hadn’t been so drunk, hadn’t been so miserable that night they’d met, maybe he too…

But then it’s sadness that slips in, wraps around Sho’s heart and squeezes. Sometimes they don’t feel like paying. This was not the first time he’s gotten hurt.

“It wasn’t my place to know,” he says quietly. “He’d have told me if he wanted me to know. He’s an adult, isn’t he?”

Ninomiya frowns. “Well now you know. You can’t just sit around and watch him leave. You can’t just sit around without worrying now.” He gets up, almost shaking in anger. Is he angry at Matsumoto? At Sho for not immediately jumping in to interfere?

Sho doesn’t get the chance to ask, because Ninomiya’s retreated, disappearing back into his room. Back to the place where he can turn up the noise and drown out the sound of his friend going out every night and putting himself in potential danger.

Matsumoto returns earlier than usual that night, and Sho’s lying on the couch. He’s half-asleep, lost in a dozen or more scenarios, Matsumoto out and about and giving all of himself just to have the money coming in. The scenarios keep shifting though, from some invisible stranger to Sho himself. To Sho slipping bills from his wallet, putting them in Matsumoto’s mouth, watching his lips close on them before reaching to unzip his pants. The more Sho thinks about it, the more vivid they become. In his mind, Matsumoto is just Jun, more and more, if only because what Sho demands of him in these fantasies is far from polite.

Jun’s just about to put a blanket on him, to show him more concern when he’s asleep than when he’s awake, and Sho stops him.

“Wait.”

“What is it?” He smells like a bar, smoke clinging to his clothes.

Do you prostitute yourself for money? Did you only come up to me that night in hopes of me helping to keep you afloat? Will you keep doing this until someone puts you in the hospital? Or worse?

Would you make _me_ pay?

“Nino’s worried about you,” he mumbles.

Because Sho’s so close to being asleep, Jun has no qualms about tracing his fingers along Sho’s brow, an almost tender gesture that Sho can barely handle. He wants to awaken fully, pull Jun down beside him, convince him to mend his risky ways in a manner Ninomiya can’t.

“Get some sleep,” Jun whispers before walking away.

—

All three of them are in the living room when Keito-san comes home a week later. This is technically Sho’s first sighting, but there’s not much to see. The door unlocks, and in an instant, Jun and Nino know who it is. Sho’s pulse races when he sees the way Jun’s entire body seems to lock up, freezing. His eyes stare straight ahead, looking at the TV screen but probably not seeing a thing. 

He’s a tall man, in a black leather jacket, and he’s carrying a huge silver case that looks heavy. Nino takes charge, offering a “Welcome home” that sounds halfway sincere. Keito-san, maybe in his late thirties or early forties, has a plain face save for a nasty looking scar running from his left ear to his jaw. Sho looks away and takes nothing else in as the man, still in his jacket, moves quickly to his bedroom and shuts the door.

The TV’s making some sort of noise, but it’s not registering for Sho. As far as he knows, Keito-san doesn’t come home like this too often, not this early in the evening. Nino shakily takes the remote, changes the channel and turns up the volume. Jun still hasn’t moved.

“There was blood,” Nino comments. “On his pants.”

Sho crosses his arms. “I…I didn’t see.”

“You didn’t know to look.”

Jun suddenly bolts, not seeming to care that he’s in nothing more than a t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. He puts on his coat and the first pair of shoes he can grab in the genkan (Sho’s, not his own), and he’s out the door. Leaving the TV volume as it is, Sho moves until he’s right next to Nino on the couch.

“What the _fuck_ are you not telling me?” Sho hisses.

Nino turns to him, and he’s not smiling. “He’s always paid his fair share…”

“What did he do to Jun?” he demands.

“Nothing,” Nino says. “Nothing I know about.”

“And he has blood on…”

The bedroom door opens, and Sho shuts up. Keito-san’s got on a different pair of pants now, jeans. He disappears into Jun’s bathroom, which Sho knows is technically a bathroom they share, and locks the door behind him. Sho looks back at Nino, who is already getting up from the couch. Before Sho can try and get more out of him, he’s gone to his room.

Sho didn’t see the blood on Keito-san’s pants, but from Jun’s reaction he has no reason to believe Nino would lie about such a thing. And the implication was that this was not the first time. The implication was that it wasn’t Keito-san’s blood either. That silly conversation he had with Aiba weeks ago comes back, and it’s not funny anymore. Aiba’s wife thought Keito-san was a serial killer. It amazes Sho what he’s managed to step into, living in this house. Where the person who prostitutes himself is not the most peculiar resident. Where a person comes home with blood on his clothes, and it’s okay because hey, at least he pays his rent on time.

He doesn’t want to be in this house a second longer. He doesn’t want to even know how many times this Keito-san has come and gone from the house, with that hideous scar and bloody clothes, with Sho asleep and vulnerable and completely oblivious. He grabs the pair of sneakers Jun didn’t manage to take and his own coat, fishing his keys out of the lame little bowl they keep in the genkan.

He stands in the carport for a few moments, wondering if he should drive to Aiba’s, ask to sleep on his sofa until he can find a way to get out of this place permanently. But no, he doesn’t want to burden him. Aiba’s kept Sho’s secrets for a long time already, and it’s not fair to drop this new mess in Aiba’s lap.

So he walks, past the other houses in their fairly quiet neighborhood. It’s funny how their house fits in with all the others, the families over there, the places shared by a mixture of people on the other side. Has anyone ever been curious about what happens in their house? About the people who live there? Has anyone ever gotten the pleasure of seeing Keito-san?

It’s only a few blocks before it shifts from residential quiet to street noise, lit up restaurants and izakayas and businesses along the main road. The train station is a beacon of light about half a mile away, and Sho thinks he could buy a ticket and see how far he could go before they stop for the evening. Grab a hotel room and sleep. But he doesn’t have the money to throw away on that. It’s not like he has a steady income from sucking cock like someone else he knows.

He crosses the street when he spies Jun in those pajama pants and his big glasses, standing at a magazine rack inside a convenience store. Sho walks in, is embraced with the all too clean smell of the store, the chatter of some teenagers arguing over some curry pan. Jun is pretending to be engrossed in a men’s magazine, but the page he’s looking at only has an ad on each page, not much to look at.

“Are you okay?” Sho asks, not wanting to hang back and spy on him.

Jun doesn’t flip the page, exhaling heavily. They’re playing some instrumental version of a Mister Children song in the store, and it’s strange without vocals. “I’ll be fine.”

Sho grabs the first magazine in front of him, something golf, and opens it, standing at Jun’s side. Out the store window, it’s blissfully normal. People coming home from work, others heading out for a bite to eat, for a drink. And only a few blocks away, Keito-san’s probably in the bathroom he shares with Jun and he’s washing blood from his hands.

“What does he do? Keito-san?”

Jun turns the page finally, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Yakuza. Probably.”

“Probably?”

Jun pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and it seems like he’s stepped closer to Sho. Not like Sho could do a damn thing to protect him if Keito-san came after them. “We don’t actually know. It’s not like we’ve asked him.”

The thought of them living with a man like that for all this time irritates Sho more than he can handle. “You let me move in. You’ll happily take my share of the rent, and you didn’t think it was my business to know something like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Sho asks coldly, setting the magazine back because he can’t keep feigning interest in drivers and putters. “Or is every person you encounter just money to you? Hey, it doesn’t matter what Sakurai does, he’ll pay his share. It doesn’t matter if Keito-san’s a fucking criminal because he’ll pay his share. Is that what it’s like when you go out at night? You’ll do whatever so long as you get your money?”

Jun roughly puts the magazine back, and Sho’s astonished to see the hurt in his eyes. Where he should be angry, should be something, anything else, he’s almost in tears. “Sho-san…”

“I told you everything. And you’ve told me nothing.” 

He turns and walks out of the store, and he’s going back to the house. He’s going to pack his things until his piece of shit car is almost bursting, and he’s going to his parents. He’s only been delaying the inevitable, all this time. “Mom, Dad, I’ve failed. I’ll do whatever you ask,” he’ll say, and at least he’ll know what he’s getting. At least living at home comes without surprises, without secrets. Maybe his dad can even get him a job in the civil service. Sho’s never wanted to benefit from the man’s connections, but striking out on his own has led him nowhere.

“Wait,” he hears when he’s just crossed the street. “Sho-san, wait.”

He keeps walking, away from the street lights and back to the quiet rows of houses. Let Keito-san be curious as Sho goes in and out with his boxes. What does it matter? He’ll never see Sho again.

“Stop.”

They’re maybe a block away and Jun’s got him by the arm. Sho’s dramatic flight comes to a quick halt. He looks at Jun’s hand on his sleeve before looking up, seeing the hurt in his face. 

“We should have told you everything.”

“Should have. But didn’t.” He tries to move again, but Jun holds onto him firmly.

“It’s my fault. We had an ad online about the room. He came by, and it was just the two of us then, me and Nino, and we’d lose the house if we didn’t…” Jun takes a deep breath. “Nino wasn’t home, and I said it was fine, and I didn’t ask any questions. I guess you’re right, after all. All I can see is money…”

He feels his anger lessening. “I didn’t…I shouldn’t have said that about you…”

Jun finally lets him go, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m not proud of it, you know.”

“Then why do it? Why keep doing it?”

Jun still looks like he’ll cry any second. “Because it’s easy. I was never a person who took the easy way out. I put in my hours and then some. I wanted to make the company better. And when we were on the chopping block, none of that mattered. Not my time, not the love I had for the company or the products. None of it. And I told myself it would be a one-time thing. Or that this would be the last time. Or this time would be it, I’m done, I’ll do better. I’m not the person I want to be right now, Sho-san, and I’m sorry.”

His desire to leave keeps slipping away. Jun and Nino are in so deep they can’t find a way out. And if Sho leaves them, what will happen? With Keito-san, with everything?

“We could go to the police. About Keito-san.” He hesitates before resting his hand on Jun’s shoulder. “All three of us, together.”

“He left blood behind in the sink once,” Jun says shakily. “And I just knew it wasn’t his. I clean in there all the time, but I can’t forget it.”

“Then we’ll make sure he goes away. If not the police, then we’ll ask him to move out.”

Jun smiles, a sad smile that just about cracks Sho’s heart in half, and he knows that the person he met in the bar that night was just an act. Sho knows that leaving him, leaving Jun, is kind of impossible now. “You don’t think Nino and I haven’t had this conversation a thousand times already? What’s to stop him from coming after us?”

“So you’re fine with him living under your roof, knowing he’s out there doing horrible things? That he’s probably hurting people, or worse?”

“I’m not fine with it,” Jun says. “I’ve never been fine with it.”

“Well?”

Jun starts to walk back toward the house, none of the usual confidence in his stride. “A little more time. I need more time.”

When they return, Nino’s sitting just inside, and he looks relieved when the both of them return together. He scrambles to his feet. “He’s gone. It’s okay.”

“When?” Sho asks. “What happened?”

“He took a shower, and he went back out. That’s it.” Nino gestures to the table. “He left his rent early, said he wasn’t sure when he’d be back.”

“We have to do something about this,” Sho says. “Soon.”

Jun and Nino exchange a look, seeming to have an entire conversation without uttering a word. Finally Nino turns to Sho and nods. “Soon then.”

—

To both Sho and Nino’s surprise, Jun doesn’t go out for an entire week, save for visits to the grocery store or to a job center. He even asks to borrow Sho’s computer so he can submit applications online. Perhaps the thought of Sho going away, leaving him and Nino to deal with Keito-san alone, has given him the motivation to give up the darker part of his life. The items he comes back from the store with are sale items, cheaper brands. He makes meals that’ll feed him for days.

They’re almost good friends, sitting in the living room each night, watching TV together. Nino pushes the lid down on Sho’s laptop, demands that he takes a break. One night they even order a pizza to split, and the fourth bedroom almost seems like it doesn’t exist.

Jun’s flipping channels, nibbling on his pizza crust, when Nino interrupts the pleasantries with a noisy “Stop! Stop, stop! Go back. Go back, I said!”

Jun rolls his eyes, and Sho laughs. Lately Nino’s been obsessed with this commercial, some actress he’s into who’s blowing bubbles and jumping around in a sun dress. But it’s not the commercial Jun finds when he goes back to the previous channel.

It’s a news report, and they’ve just identified the body of a man pulled from the Arakawa River the other night. “…Shibasaki Keito-san, of Yashio, Saitama, age 41 was found with his throat cut and…”

When they put up the photograph, there’s the scar. The otherwise unremarkable face. He’s dead. Keito-san is dead. The news broadcast becomes background noise. They gave his address as Saitama, miles away from the house. They list him as unemployed. No family. 

He’s dead.

Almost as one person the three of them rise from the living room furniture, moving together as the news switches to the next story, Keito-san’s murder just one item on the evening agenda. They walk past Jun’s door, past his bathroom, to the door at the end of the hall.

“We shouldn’t,” Sho says quietly. “We call the police, and then none of our fingerprints are in there.”

“He’s right,” Jun says. “You heard it. He was killed. They threw his body in the river…”

Nino shakes his head. “No. No, they don’t even know about us. They’ve got his name, they confirmed it was him. They’ve spent days on this already, so they don’t know he was coming here. They’d have had cops swarming this place otherwise.”

“You can’t know that for a certainty,” Sho replies. “Isn’t his name on the lease here?”

Jun and Nino exchange another one of those looks that drives Sho crazy.

“He’s not on the lease?” Sho chuckles bitterly. “What the hell, am I even on it?”

Nino ignores Sho’s warning and opens the door. Keito-san never locked it, something that surprises Sho a great deal. Perhaps he knew how much he intimidated them, assumed they’d never pry into his business. Well, he’s gone now.

Sho stays in the doorway, and Jun only steps a foot inside. But Nino’s quick, pulling down the sleeves of his hooded sweatshirt and covering his hands. The room is just as empty as it had been that one day Nino had shown him, save for one very noticeable change.

Nino’s covered hands brush along the top of the silver case, the heavy looking case Keito-san had brought home with him that night. “Don’t…don’t touch it,” Jun says half-heartedly, but Nino’s already turning the case around on top of the bedspread, fumbling with the clasp through the fabric of his sweatshirt.

It opens with dual clicks, and Sho exhales. Nino looks up, meets their eyes for just a moment before lifting the lid.

“Holy shit.”

—

Thirty million yen in the silver case, all large bills. But that’s not all. They find small stacks of cash in the pillowcase, between the mattress and the box spring. Stacks of cash in the chest of drawers between Keito-san’s jeans and other slacks. Added together by all three of them over the past two hours, checked and double-checked, and they’ve got sixty-two million and change.

They’ve emptied the case, and the three of them are standing in the middle of the bedroom. They’re surrounded by money, more money than they’ve seen in their lives. They said very little once Nino found it, the three of them just dividing up the stacks of bills and counting, Jun pulling out his phone and using the calculator function to check and check and check. 

The counting is done though, they’ve surely found it all. Jun sinks down to his knees, clutching his phone, laughing in a way that’s somewhere between charming and creepy. Nino says nothing at all. Sho’s brain has been numbers and cash for the better part of two hours and now reason, stupid reason, is coming back with a vengeance. 

“We can’t keep it,” he says, simply because at least one of them has to say it out loud. They should have gone to the police, but now they’ve touched it, they’ve counted it, this dirty money. How many people were hurt? How many might have even died for the money they’re covering with their fingerprints?

But it’s sixty-two million yen, and Shibasaki Keito’s name was never on the lease. Nino’s days from losing his job, Sho hasn’t had any luck, and Jun’s only income for the better part of a year has come from…well.

“We can’t keep it,” Sho says again, with more strength behind it, waiting for one of them to agree.

“The bills aren’t in numerical order. And they’re not new,” Nino decides. “Probably not being traced then.”

Sho laughs. “Nino, come on.”

He shakes his head, tapping the case on the bed with his fingertips. “We get rid of the case. All the money goes in the attic, can’t put it in the bank unless we make small deposits. We keep track of what we spend. We clean this room out.”

“Nino!”

Jun gets up, moves to the case on the bed. He closes it and picks it up. “Okay.”

Sho can’t believe this, but then again, why is it so surprising? Nothing about the two men in the room with him should surprise him anymore. They let someone like Keito-san move in. Neither is all too eager to face reality, and then again, neither is Sho. He leapt at the chance to move in, to do anything that would keep him from having to confess his failure to his parents.

And now he’s gotten himself an equal share of Keito-san’s blood money. He just has to say okay, like Jun has.

“You’re sure that nobody could trace Keito-san back here? How do you know he never told anyone?”

“I’ve got about sixty-two million reasons why,” Nino replies. “Whether he stole this or it’s his personal stash, he kept it here for a reason. Why would he tell anyone?”

Jun’s looking at him with such expectation, such hope in his big brown eyes that Sho understands immediately why people can fall for him so easily. For a night or, in Sho’s case, for good. But isn’t it all too easy? Too convenient? Keito-san’s dead, and he just happened to leave his cash behind here? The answer to all their money problems, a way to survive without having to work. Or to sell themselves in Jun’s case. Something to get them through until the world wants the three of them for proper jobs.

“Sho-chan, we’ll go to the police if you want,” Nino says calmly, so calm it’s unnerving. The stacks of bills have brought back his cold side, his calculating side. “We’ll tell the police that Keito-san’s been living here for months. That we knew he was involved in something shady and said nothing.”

“I wanted to go to the police,” Sho protests.

“Well, you didn’t go. You could have,” Nino shoots back. “But as far as I see it, you’re an accessory, the same as me and Jun-kun, right?”

Sho’s eyes widen. Jun’s looking at Nino with disgust. “Nino, don’t…don’t do this to him.”

“Or what? A third of this belongs to him.” He picks up a loose stack of money, flings it at Sho. It flutters through the air, landing in a messy pile at his feet. “Why won’t you just take it? It’s not like we’re going to blow through it in a week, travel the world and bathe in champagne. Or well, if that’s what you’d like to do, then do it. You’ve been in here counting this the same as we have. You’ve been doing the math, how many months’ rent it is, the cost of a new suit for an interview. A better car. Eating something besides ramen. Don’t lie to me.”

“Where are we keeping it?” he asks, giving in. Because every time he’s convinced himself that he’s going to walk away, something keeps dragging him right back.

There’s a cord that hangs down from the ceiling right by Sho’s bedroom door. It’s been here the whole time, and he’s never really thought about it. Nino gives it a tug and down comes a staircase. The three of them count the money again, dividing it in three parts and shoving it in duffel bags, in trash bags. They each take a cardinal direction. Nino’s money goes to the north, Jun’s south. Sho puts his east, covers it with a blanket from the trunk of his car. He’s the last to leave the attic, and when he climbs down, Nino’s waiting.

“I know there’s a lot you don’t like about this,” Nino says.

“But.”

Nino grins. “But I knew you’d make the right choice.” He slips a 10,000 yen bill out of his pocket, something he’s already taken from his stash. He wiggles it in Sho’s face. “We’ll go for beers tomorrow night, and I’ll even pay for them.”

Sho watches him walk away, shoving the money back in his pocket. He lifts up the attic stairs, feeling them snap back into place. They’re incredibly noisy, with hinges that probably need oiling. If one of them goes upstairs, there’s no mistaking it. 

So long as the other two are in the house to hear it.

—

The beers are postponed because they have to erase Keito-san’s presence from the house first. The silver case is well-made, heavy, and probably the most “Keito-san” thing they have. If anyone around town, any cameras, captured him with that case, it means that it has to be as far away from the house as they can get it.

Nino takes charge of cleaning the room, vacuuming and scrubbing, washing every surface. Jun’s got Keito-san’s clothes, and he washes them all, hangs them to dry. And once they’re dry, Sho’s up. He’s the one with the car. The three of them divide Keito-san’s clothes up into multiple bags, and they go into Sho’s trunk along with the silver case. They didn’t manage to find anything with blood stains, so Keito-san must have saved them the trouble and disposed of his crimes on his own. Even though he doesn’t have to come, Jun sits in the passenger seat as Sho drives them out of town.

It’s about 2:00 PM when they stop the first time, getting off the highway and pulling into a strip mall. Sho leaves the engine running as he pops the trunk, grabs one bag of clothes. There’s a charity collection bin at the end of the line of shops, and he sends the bag into the chute. When he gets back into the car, he’s shaking.

Jun puts his hand on his leg, squeezes. “You did fine.”

They’ve looked these places up, where the bins are, and tried to find the ones that are most isolated. Not an easy thing to do when they live in Tokyo. They looked for places where there might not be many cameras, where they won’t even pick up the bags for weeks. They’re washed too, Keito-san’s scent washed away, and among the t-shirts and jeans and socks, there’s nothing that seems to be all that unique. No t-shirts for a favorite sports team, for a local business.

But Sho’s still scared out of his mind. You’d think they were the ones who killed Keito-san.

Jun programs the next address they’ve got into his phone. They’ve still got four stops to make - three more clothes bags and then the silver case. The bins are all about forty to fifty miles apart from each other, and it’s only by the third bin that he realizes that they have two choices: get back to Tokyo in the middle of the night or just get a room and head back in the morning.

Sho waits until they dump the last bag of clothes before bringing this up. “Well,” Jun says, programming in the final address. “We can afford it. I’d rather not risk either of us falling asleep behind the wheel.”

“Do you think Nino will be mad?”

Jun shrugs. “I don’t really care.”

It’s after dark when they get to the lake. Jun carries the case inside a shopping bag, and Sho has the flashlight. There’s nobody out here but the crickets, and they slowly walk from the empty parking lot through the trees and down to the shore. During the summer, it’s a popular place for picnics and renting rowboats. The boat rental shop is closed for the season, and the dock that stretches out over the water will give them access to the deepest water they can get to without stealing a boat and rowing to the middle of the lake themselves. They’re lucky the lake hasn’t frozen over.

They set down the shopping bag and open the silver case by the dock. Sho stays with it, heart racing, as Jun disappears. He returns with rocks and pebbles and sand from the shoreline, gathered up in a small bucket they bought at a 100 Yen Shop that morning. Back and forth Jun goes, and Sho wonders if they should have just filled the case down at the shore. But once the thing’s full and Sho gets it closed, it’s going to take the both of them to move it.

In the dark and with the flashlight precariously held in his mouth, he and Jun walk along the dock, cold black water all around them as they inch past the rental shop and toward the edge. They set it down for only a moment before Sho pushes it with his shoe. They hear only a gentle splash and then it’s gone, off to settle at the bottom.

He and Jun stand there a few moments longer, and he feels Jun’s fingers lace together with his. They’re rough, a little gritty from digging around on the shore for rocks and sand to weigh down the case. Sho doesn’t mind. He’s actually glad Jun’s come with him. The plan had been for Sho to go alone. Nino thought the pair of them would look more suspicious if they were caught on camera.

“I’m sorry, Sho-san. For everything.”

Sho squeezes Jun’s hand. “We could move. The longer we stay in that house…”

“We could,” Jun mumbles. 

“Start over.” He knows he’s blushing and is grateful that it’s dark. “Nino, too, obviously.”

“Right.”

He lets Jun’s hand go. “We should get out of here.”

—

Sho rents the room and pays cash. Two double beds and the cheapest room they have available is next to the ice machine. He considers something nicer for only a moment, paranoid about the police tracing the money. He considers a room with a single king bed for a little longer than a moment. But he’s not so very brave.

They’ve only got the clothes on their backs, the shopping bag, and the sandy bucket. Jun puts the bag and bucket in the dumpster around the other side of the hotel and returns. Sho’s sitting up in the bed closer to the door, watching a nature documentary, when Jun locks the door, slides the chain. He draws the curtains and unlaces his shoes.

“You mind if I shower first?” Jun asks, and Sho’s mouth goes dry. Jun looks down in embarrassment. “Sho-san…”

“Right. Go ahead.” It’s easier back at the house. Nino’s back at the house. Jun taking a shower means nothing more than getting clean. It’s not a preamble to something more, and Sho knows that. “I texted Nino, told him where we are.”

“Good,” Jun says, and the bathroom door closes.

Sho shuts his eyes, trying to keep from losing it. Jun just on the other side of the wall, naked, water streaming through his hair, down his back. How many hotels has Jun been in, hotels like this that are amenity-free and with thin walls? Where they’ll take your cash and look the other way when a man comes in and they can see another one sitting in the car just outside, waiting.

Jun’s in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, plain and blue and not as flashy as Sho anticipated, when he emerges. “Water pressure sucks,” Jun complains, rubbing his head with a towel. He sits down on the other bed, and it creaks noisily in a way Sho’s doesn’t. “I hate sleeping in beds that aren’t mine.”

Sho bites back a comment, a crude comment he doesn’t have to really say. “There’s nothing on TV,” he says instead.

Jun mutters another complaint, lying back and covering his face with the towel. Sho takes the quickest shower of his life, if only because he desperately wants to jerk off and doesn’t think he’ll be able to stop once he starts. It’s easier in his room at night, imagining Jun going out smelling like expensive everything but coming back and telling Sho he’s the only one who counts. Now that Sho knows about him, about Jun’s secret life, he only wants him more.

He wants that mouth, taking and taking because Jun gives and gives for pay. He wants to be the reason Jun stops and stops for good. He has to wait to come back out until he calms down, brushing his teeth with his finger and cleaning his ears, anything mundane to keep him from walking across that worn-down carpet and letting Jun see just how pathetic and desperate he is and has been from the moment they met, despite everything.

Jun’s in the same position he left him in, feet planted on the floor and flopped back against the bed, towel on his face. Sho allows himself only a few breaths to look where Jun’s t-shirt stops and his boxers begin, to look at his pale, lean thighs, knees, calves.

Sho makes it to the bed, pulling the blankets down and yanking them out from where they’ve been tucked unnecessarily tight at the foot of the bed. And then he’s under, able to pile the blankets up and hide again. He turns onto his side, watching Jun.

“You awake?”

“Yep,” comes a muffled response from beneath the towel.

“Not going to fall asleep like that, are you? You’ll be terrible to deal with tomorrow.” Jun’s the opposite of a morning person, and Sho’s learned to mostly avoid him before 10:00 AM if he can help it.

“Bed sucks.”

“Sorry.”

“Swap with me, you sleep like a log no matter where you are.”

Sho grins. “Fuck no.”

He pulls the towel away from his face, turning to glare at Sho. “I bet you knew this bed was noisy. When I went to throw that shit in the dumpster, you tested them both.”

“I did not.”

“You did,” Jun says, his bed giving an extra disgruntled creak as he sits up, his damp hair a mess. He wore his contacts today, if only because Nino gave him a lecture about “obnoxiously large glasses” making one stand out in security camera footage. “Swap with me.”

“No, thank you.” He leans over to turn off the bedside lamp. But Jun’s quicker, off the bed with his hand wrapped around Sho’s wrist before he can flip the switch.

His touch is electric, his fingers tight around Sho’s wrist as he stares down at him so intently. “Swap with me,” he says, and his voice is different. Instead of his whining, it’s the voice Sho recognizes from the bar, when Jun thought he was being charming by adding five years to Sho’s life.

It’s a staring contest now, and Sho’s convinced that the complaints about the creaking bed were just an excuse. Maybe Jun’s as interested as he is. After all, there’s been a huge shift in their lives in the past 24 hours. Keito-san is dead. They’ve taken his money. The two of them have turned into undercover operatives, doing clothing donation dead drops in small towns. A lot of excitement, tensions are high. Also, they’re alone for the first time in a very long time.

How badly do you want me, Sho wants to ask. Do I pay now or later?

Saying something, though, will spoil it. So he just wrenches out of Jun’s grasp and flips the switch, and now all that’s left is the glow from the TV. Jun’s mostly in shadow, and Sho instinctively turns onto his back. Before he can push the covers off, Jun’s moving on top of him, a knee on either side of him. Sho lets out a soft moan at the sudden contact. Jun has to feel him, he has to know.

Jun leans forward, breathing in and out, taking Sho’s hands in his and pushing them back. Sho closes his eyes as his hands and Jun’s settle above his head, thumping awkwardly against the headboard. He feels cocooned, stuck under the blankets because Jun isn’t letting him move. It takes him a few moments to realize Jun isn’t trying to kiss his mouth to start. Instead he feels the warmth of Jun’s breath at the side of his face, beside his ear. Testing and experimenting.

He likes the weight of Jun atop him, squeezing his hands as he lets Jun’s mouth wander across his face, feeling helpless to do anything but enjoy it. It’s a bad kiss, their first one, because Sho’s a few steps ahead, opening his mouth and expecting Jun to go for tongue instantly. He doesn’t, offering a rather cruel chuckle before pressing soft, patronizing kisses all along Sho’s cheeks, his chin. But then he comes back, each of his kisses lengthier than the one that came before it.

It’s a strange feeling, being in a bed, both half-naked, and not skipping ahead. Sho’s used to such things, having never had anything long-term. Kissing is fine, kissing is great, but before too long things have to get to the point. Jun’s not that type, he learns, because he’s so painfully slow. Every time Sho tries to move, to arch up against Jun and get a reaction, to move things along, Jun just kisses him longer, kisses him harder, licking at the corner of his mouth, resisting Sho’s upward movements with surprising strength.

Jun’s finally moving a few minutes later, letting go of Sho’s hands. He moves, away from his dangerous place atop Sho and onto his side, one of his legs sliding up to lie across Sho. With Sho’s arm for a pillow, Jun traces his fingers along his jaw before sliding up into his hair, pulling him back for another kiss. Sho’s got one arm free now at least so he lets it down and it finds Jun’s leg. 

He’s a little ticklish, grumbling a complaint against Sho’s mouth when Sho teases his fingers up his bare skin, up into his shorts. He’s so warm, and being trapped under the blanket is like a sauna. He’s probably sweating, but Jun’s still not too interested in more. Sho vaguely hears the TV station switching to a commercial break, some obnoxious jingle, and he slips his hand out from Jun’s boxers only to grab his ass through the fabric instead.

“Jun…”

“Ssh, quiet.”

Jun protests by tugging on strands of Sho’s hair, something that would probably hurt him, irk him, if he didn’t have him pressed so solidly along the length of his body, those dangerous lips of his pressed to his own. When Jun finally relents, it’s only so he can tug on Sho’s t-shirt instead, pushing it up. In that instant, he kind of wishes he’d gone to the gym more, but Jun seems satisfied enough with what he finds, tracing his fingers so slowly up Sho’s ribcage that he has a feeling he won’t last much longer. He’ll be a disappointment, that’s for sure.

Sho wants to do more, wants to contribute more, but Jun’s doing all the driving. Somehow he gets a hand under the blankets at some point, tracing figure-eights on Sho’s abdomen. “Fuck,” Sho begs him. “Please.”

And Jun’s laughter is a mesmerizing thing, his teeth catching on Sho’s earlobe just in time with his hand slipping further. “I haven’t even done anything yet,” comes his whispering, teasing voice. What a fucking liar.

It’s probably unattractive, kind of sad the way Sho’s whimpering now, any further noises of protest or pleasure or both lost against Jun’s mouth. His hand, his free hand, is just selfish enough to fumble under the covers to find Jun’s, help him along. “There, please. There.”

“Shut up, you’re noisy,” Jun chides him, but it’s with affection, and somewhere beneath it all, need. Jun needs him, wants him just as much. It’s so good, so good, and it’s just his hand, his fingers, steady and firm and eventually way too much.

“Wait,” Sho complains, trying to still Jun’s hand, trembling in increasing desperation. “Jun, wait.”

“I’ve wanted this. From the moment I saw you.” Jun’s given up on kissing him, seems perfectly content to just get Sho off. “I’ve wanted to know what I could do to you.”

It’s kind of embarrassing, how quickly he comes, how dirty he feels as it gets all on the cheap cotton sheets. He’s stuck in that perfect limbo, that place he’s not so keen to leave, and for the first time it’s Jun who’s taken him there. In a few moments Jun’s wrenching the blankets off him, the sheet that’s managed to bear the brunt of Sho’s frantic orgasm. Jun balls the sheet up and throws it into the corner of the room, and before Sho can adjust to the shock of the suddenly cooler air, Jun pulls the other blankets back. 

He settles in on the other side of the bed, taking up considerably more than half, and even in Sho’s euphoric state, he can feel the smugness radiating off of Jun in waves. He wants to return the favor, but Jun’s already turned over, head on the pillow. He’s given up on the swap and has claimed the bed anyway. Sho’s a few inches from falling off the edge, only staying on by leaning closer to Jun.

Sho somehow manages to get the TV off, and he lies there in the dark listening as Jun’s breathing grows heavier. Maybe, he thinks in irritation, he should have just gotten that king bed.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s amazing they don’t crash the car on the way back. Now that they’ve given in, come clean about wanting each other, it’s like they’re different people. They barely make it out of the hotel by checkout time, Sho returning last night’s favor by pushing Jun back against the door and dropping to his knees to pay a very special kind of homage. And then in the car every traffic slowdown, every red light, is an eternity, knowing that if Jun so much as reaches his hand out that it’s all over, that he’ll just have to pull over.

They’ve been more physical, individually, with Nino than with one another ever since they’ve been living together. Nino who pokes and prods and caresses. It’s like every time Sho kept his hands to himself, every time he’s looked at Jun and wanted to play cartographer with his moles, with his every pore, he banked points. “Wanted to touch Jun today. Didn’t. 50 Points.” And Jun’s done the same. And now, now they’ve both turned up to cash in. With interest.

They pull in to the carport beside the house in the middle of the afternoon, and he’s barely put the car in park before Jun’s in his space, already reaching for him again. “These,” Jun’s murmuring in amusement, tracing along Sho’s plump lips with his thumb, “these should be illegal.”

Things have been tense for so long, so Sho isn’t feeling too guilty about giving in. Nino’s gone, off to work according to a text from at least an hour ago, so the house is theirs. It looks different now when they manage to get out of the car, get inside. Sho’s laptop, always open to some job page, can stay closed. Keito-san’s room, that forbidden zone, is now just the fourth bedroom, a spare. Empty once they hire movers to take the furniture away.

There’s still about 60 million yen scattered above their heads, and Jun all but drags Sho into his room. He’s not surprised to see the collection Jun has in his bedside table. Condoms, lube, even some toys that Sho’s not comfortable asking about just yet. It’s been so long since he’s done this and he tells Jun as much. “What, you think I couldn’t tell?” Jun says, his voice low, teasing.

Things are developing so fast. They’ve gone from hasty first kisses in a nasty hotel to sex in the house within twenty-four hours, but it feels right. It feels like it wouldn’t work if it was anyone else. Sho isn’t even sure how he likes it best, but Jun’s understanding, patient in a way he refused to be at the hotel. He waits politely for Sho to figure out if he wants to be face to face or if that’s way too embarrassing. After rolling around in a considerably unsexy fashion he’s now on his back, confused, naked as the day he was born and half-hard, telling himself that it doesn’t matter because it’s Jun and by God, he has to be amazing at any angle. Practice has almost certainly made perfect, if his toned biceps and abs aren’t living proof standing at the foot of the bed.

“Sho-san,” Jun says, and Sho hasn’t been able to stop looking at him, mapping his tongue’s next adventure in advance, changing his itinerary as soon as he spots something new he just has to try. “You’re thinking way too much about this.”

“The problem is that I don’t have a point of reference for this room,” Sho admits, trying to focus, failing when he sees how Jun licks his lips unconsciously while he’s sprawled there, defenseless. “Forgive me for being blunt, but I’ve only imagined you fucking me in the kitchen.” He declines to say anything about how Jun always cooks dinner first when these fantasies happen.

Jun shakes his head, laughing. “I just knew going up to the weird drunk guy with the Scotch and sodas would lead to good things.”

He’s thankful that Jun’s bed doesn’t creak the way the hotel’s did. He takes his sweet time, treating Sho’s inexperienced body with considerable finesse. Sho learns he could die happily just from the sensation of Jun’s fingers slowly fucking him. With one, with two, with a tempo that has Sho convinced this is preferable to whatever ridiculous ideas he had about being bent over the kitchen counter without preamble. Jun nearly sends him soaring, crooking his fingers, making Sho muffle a gasp in one of Jun’s pillows. Like someone’s actually going to hear them.

“Relax,” Jun has to tell him. “Relax, alright?”

“Easy for you to say, you do this all the time.”

If Jun’s offended, it’s not for long. He rolls on a condom and chuckles when he pulls the pillow away from Sho’s face, out of his hands. He traces his fingers along his own shoulder, drawing Sho’s attention in an instant. “If you need to, you can bite.”

Sho thinks he might take him up on the offer regardless. With each slow stroke, though, everything falls away. Sho’s nervousness, his hesitation. The house and the money and putting hundreds of miles on his car to dump a dead man’s clothes. Everything else switches off in favor of Jun’s weight, Jun’s hot breath, the sinful perfection of how their bodies align, come together. He manages to babble out something weird and too obvious like “fuck me with your cock,” which makes Jun just pick up the pace until Sho can’t manage words at all, only taking it, taking it, taking it.

He doesn’t even remember the open invitation to bite.

—

When he wakes, it’s already dark, the winter stealing away the sunlight hours as usual. He’s in the empty bed, and when he pulls on his boxers and his t-shirt, he opens the door to find Nino and Jun watching TV and realizes he should have put his jeans on too. Or at least run his fingers through his hair.

“You must be good, Jun-kun,” Nino says with a roll of his eyes, amused by Sho’s dishevelment.

He slinks back to his own room to change into something else, finding that Nino has no further comments to offer once he comes back out and joins them. Instead the three of them eat dinner and get right back to business.

Nino’s already got movers coming in the morning to haul out Keito-san’s bed, mattress, box spring, and chest of drawers. They’re being donated to charity. 

“And then day after tomorrow, I’m getting a locksmith over here,” Nino says, not even looking away from the TV.

“Why?” Sho asks.

“Changing all the locks, we split it three ways,” Nino explains. “Just to be on the safe side.”

“What about the attic?” Jun asks, his eyes unconsciously drifting toward the hallway. The money that’s just sitting up there in piles, vulnerable.

“Ah, I’ve thought about that too,” Nino says, setting his plate down on the table and disappearing into his room for a minute. He comes back toting his own laptop, pulling up a DIY website. “I was thinking about installing a lock myself. Right now all you need to do is tug and there you are. It’s just asking for trouble.”

Jun’s confused, scrolling through the website on Nino’s screen. “You should have a pro do this. You’re going to electrocute yourself.”

“There’s no electricity involved,” Nino spits back.

“You’d find a way,” Jun retorts. “Hire a pro, do it right.”

“Yeah, hire a professional to install an unnecessary lock on an attic hatch. Not suspicious at all.” He nods, if only to reassure himself. “I can do it. I’ll get it done.”

Sho watches this exchange with interest. Jun seems the least concerned about the safety of their money, and it seems like Nino has taken on the brunt of the paranoia. Sho then asks something uncomfortable. “And with the attic lock, you’ll have three keys made, right?”

There’s suspicion clouding Nino’s face for only a second before he smiles, chuckling. “Well, obviously.”

“If it helps you sleep at night,” Jun says with a shrug. “Lock it up then.”

Nino disappears back into his room shortly after dinner, and it goes without saying that he and Jun will calm down, wait until they have the place alone again. It’s difficult, though, getting up to head for his room when Jun’s lying there sprawled out on the couch.

“We should go out sometime,” Sho says, halfway between the couch and the hall. “Just me and you. For dinner. We can afford to do it now.”

Jun smiles. “If Nino doesn’t bankrupt us turning this place into a bank vault first.”

Sho looks at his feet. “So uh, just so things are clear. You won’t be…with the money I mean, you won’t be going out at night anymore, right?”

“Look at me.” Jun sighs. “Sho-kun.”

He obeys, looking up in embarrassment to see Jun watching him with considerably more seriousness than he expressed during his argument with Nino. “There’s no reason for me to go anywhere if you’re here.”

It seems almost too honest an answer, and it should make Sho want to melt into a happy puddle. Things are going his way. He’s got money, more stability, and now…now he has Jun. But what if there was no money? 

Would Jun have the same response to give him?

—

It’s brisk and cold, but they’re in and out of stores, in and out of Aiba’s car. “I need clothes,” was Sho’s complaint and Aiba was all too willing to give up one of his Saturdays if it meant Sho would actually be going somewhere.

They had lunch first, and Aiba had offered no comment, only a surprised arch of his eyebrows when Sho refused to let him pay his share of the tab. It had felt good, a load off his mind, to go up to the register and pay the full bill, even if it was just two daily specials and coffee. During this last extra charitable year, Aiba had always lied terribly, his portion of the bill somehow always managing to be much more than Sho’s. 

They’re looking at jeans, something Aiba takes very seriously, when it finally comes up. “How are things with that weird guy? The criminal?”

Sho nearly bumps into a clothing rack, clutching the different pairs he’s selected in his arms. “Who?”

“You told me his name, I can’t remember. The fourth guy.”

“Oh,” Sho says, turning his back on Aiba and pretending to look interested in some belts. Aiba knows. Aiba knows there was a fourth person living at the house. And with enough prompting, he’d probably be able to remember Keito-san’s name. How could Sho have forgotten such a huge loose end? “He moved out. Just after the New Year.”

“Well I’m glad to hear it,” Aiba’s saying, his voice cheerful as always. “We were worried about you, living with someone like that, Sho-chan.”

“He’s gone now. No big deal. Other things are…happening.” Maybe Aiba will forget completely about Keito-san if he’s got something else to chew on. “With the guy I told you about. The guy who asked me to move in from the start.”

Aiba’s got an arm around him in an instant. “No wonder you look so happy! Since when? Since when, I want to know!” 

Though Sho wants to buy the entire stack of jeans he’s got, he doesn’t need to arouse Aiba’s curiosity any more today. He settles for three pairs, and once he’s paid for them, Aiba drags him up and down the walkways of the outlet mall, prying every detail he can out of Sho about Jun. Jun’s a safe subject, and Aiba’s always been so damn interested in how the whole “being gay thing” works that Sho will tell him anything he wants to know if it means Aiba just fucking forgets Sho ever had a fourth housemate.

They’re on their way home when Aiba slaps the steering wheel, laughing. “We got through all of this and I didn’t say anything.”

“About what?”

Aiba’s grinning from ear to ear as he explains that his father-in-law, Becky’s father, has a few openings at his company right now. The family runs a small chain of pet supply stores, and before Sho can be a little insulted that Aiba wants him to start selling hamster food, Aiba explains that it’s a job in the corporate offices in Yokohama. “Supply chain something or other,” Aiba says weakly, not knowing as much about it as he thought he did. “You’d be coordinating shipments from the warehouse to the stores. You’d be good at that, Sho-chan, I know you would.”

It’s a far cry from geography teacher, but Becky’s ready and willing to put in a good word for Sho with her dad, allowing them to easily skip over the tricky business of how Sho left his last position. All he has to do is say yes, and Becky will get the ball rolling. 

“It would be a bit of a commute from where you are,” Aiba admits, “but if you’ve got a new job, you could move anyhow once you start saving again.”

There’s not one logical reason to turn Aiba down. This is the best offer, hell, the only offer Sho’s gotten in months. Earning money legitimately, too. Nothing to feel guilty about. Sure it’s a job falling into his lap, an offer he wouldn’t have gotten if he didn’t happen to know the company president’s daughter’s husband so well, but it’s a chance to prove himself.

He’s got the bag of jeans, t-shirts, socks sitting at his feet as Aiba drives them back toward the house. The bag of clothes purchased with money Sho did nothing to earn. “Set it up,” he tells Aiba. “And thank you.”

—

Keito-san’s room is completely empty, the house locks are changed, and Nino’s spent the past several days teaching himself how to secure their investments upstairs. After a ton of drilling and cursing and not having the right tools, he’s managed to do it. They have to get on a step-stool now, twist a key in the lock to disengage the attic stairs. At least while he’s played at carpentry he took the time to oil the hinges. Though they still make noise, it’s a lot smoother now to pull it down.

Nino’s had them test it with each of the three keys he’s had made to ensure fairness, and then he lays out all the receipts for what he’s bought to install the new lock, splitting the cost three ways. Sho doesn’t complain, handing over his share, but Jun’s a little annoyed, using his new key and stomping upstairs, returning with what he owes.

“We’re not going to be here forever,” Jun says. “It’s all a bit much.”

“Then go make a 20 million yen deposit at the bank out of nowhere and see how they react,” Nino says, insulting Jun further by counting the bills he hands over. “Or stuff it in your pillowcase like Keito-san.”

They haven’t so much as spoken Keito-san’s name aloud in the weeks since they’ve taken his money, and it’s still got shock value behind it. It gets Jun to shut up about it, and Sho just doesn’t want to rock the boat. Sho makes sure to pay Nino, to keep things fair, but then he listens to Jun at night, Jun with his big ideas.

Sho’s told Jun about Yokohama, about the job, and if he gets it, his commute time will be an hour and a half and approximately three trains. On a good day. Jun thinks they should get a place closer, once Sho settles in and decides if he likes it or not. The implication, unspoken, is that it’ll just be the two of them. Otherwise, Jun would surely be unafraid to have this conversation in front of Nino.

“I have too many bad memories here,” Jun whispers in the dark, tracing his fingers along Sho’s collarbone. “We can use my money to do it, if it makes you uncomfortable to spend so much.”

“Maybe,” Sho replies, not wanting to commit so quickly. Not because he doesn’t want that with Jun. He’s never been so sure of something in his life. But because it doesn’t seem right to exclude Nino, to decide these things behind his back. Sho’s almost disappointed in Jun. It was Nino who found him at that high school reunion, Nino who got Jun a place to live in the first place. Shouldn’t that matter more to him? 

Sho’s not saying the three of them have to keep living together. It can’t be fun for Nino to live with a fairly new couple, knowing that as soon as he leaves for work that they’re probably having sex and that they probably have sex even when he’s home. Which is true. Sho just thinks plans like Jun’s, big life-altering plans, should be made with at least Nino’s knowledge, especially if he keeps investing funds in upgrading the security of their current house. There’s no point if they’ll be leaving soon.

“I think we’d all be happier,” Jun mumbles, brushing a kiss to Sho’s temple. “Living anywhere else.”

—

Sho’s almost forgotten what it’s like to get up in the morning, cram on board trains, and be a part of the daily crush. It’s almost invigorating in its normality. Wearing a suit, grabbing any spare strap he can manage as the train speeds along. By the fourth day sitting in a small cubicle at Emerald Pet Friends headquarters, drinking the bland coffee and making small talk about what he watched on television the previous night, Sho’s filled with an absurd happiness he can hardly contemplate.

They know he’s friends with the head honcho’s daughter, but that was already irrelevant by his second day. Everyone gets where they are for different reasons. All that matters is if he can fit where they need him, and he can. Dealing with the warehouse, fielding supply calls from stores, it’s a cake walk compared to standing up in front of thirty-five uninterested teenagers and asking them to explain the difference between a strait and an isthmus.

He keeps a spreadsheet open, tracking the money that’ll come in his first paycheck at the end of the month. He’s got it figured out down to the hour, how much he’s bringing in, and he thinks maybe he could take that amount out of the stash in the attic, donate it to charity once that check comes in. Or more selfishly, he’ll use the attic money to pay his fair share of the rent and bills and take the paycheck from Emerald and use it to take Jun out for dinner.

Jun’s happy for him, bordering on almost competitive jealousy. When Sho comes home, loosening his tie, exhausted from the commute, Jun wants to know everything about his day, every boring little thing. Nino makes gagging noises and vanishes back into his room. Jun’s missed that life though, every boring bit of it. Sho wonders if he should ask Aiba what other tricks he has up his sleeve, if he can find something for someone with Jun’s qualifications.

But again, it’s only been four days.

By the end of his fifth day and the end of the work week, Sho’s feeling great. He’s invited for a drink with his new colleagues in the logistics and merchandising department, a group of folks who are friendly and harmless and just assume Sho got disillusioned with teaching. They go for one beer, because Sho says he has to get home, but the camaraderie is too welcoming for him to say no to beers number two, three, four, and five. 

He’s gleeful when he gets off his last train, moves along through the shopping district and back toward the house. He barely notices the man standing in the carport until he’s almost to the front door.

“Hey,” Sho calls out, and the guy’s standing under the faint outdoor light attached to the side of the house. He might have been looking into Sho’s car. “Hey, this is private property.”

Sho thinks the guy’s got the wrong address because he’s got a strange look on his face when he approaches, his eyes darting all around. He’s short, small like Nino but with a rounder face. Sho’s age, maybe older. He’s in a bulky winter coat and a knit hat, and the first words out of his tiny little mouth are “I’m sorry, but are you Ninomiya Kazunari?”

Sho shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

“I was told Ninomiya Kazunari lives here,” the guy says, and his voice is very calm.

“Who are you?”

Despite his calm demeanor, he’s persistent. “Does Ninomiya Kazunari live here?”

Sho rolls his eyes, veering toward impolite because he’s letting the alcohol speak for him. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m Ohno,” the guy says warily.

“Well I think you have the wrong house, sorry.”

“Is that so? I had it on good authority.”

“Whose?”

“Shibasaki Keito’s.”

In that instant, Sho knows he’s given up the game because he sees the calm, cheerful face of this “Ohno” change. He sees through Sho’s lies, his eyes narrowing. But Sho keeps trying to cover, and badly. “I don’t know who that is. I think you have the wrong house.”

Ohno nods. “Sorry to bother you then. Must have my wires crossed. Good night.” 

Sho holds fast to his briefcase, unable to let his eyes leave this Ohno as he calmly strolls toward the street, heading back toward the main road. He watches him until he disappears into the darkness. And then he’s hurrying, nearly dropping his keys as he turns them in the locks. Nino’s got it set up now that there’s two and there’s a key he needs for each.

He slams the door behind him, hands shaking as he turns the locks, even throws the crappy chain that Carpenter Ninomiya has just added on in another burst of paranoia the other day. And now Sho knows that paranoia is justified. He’s sobering up, but not quickly enough because when he gets in he can’t even get Nino’s name out.

“Ni…Kazu…Nino…”

Jun sighs. “You’re late, we ate without you.”

“Nino,” Sho says, waving his hand. He hasn’t taken off his coat or his shoes, and he sees how much quicker Nino is to notice. “Nino!”

Nino’s out of his seat, tugging on him, pulling him to the couch. “What? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The pure terror rushing through Sho is making his chest ache. He had his issues with Keito-san, but now he knows exactly what Jun was feeling any time the man came home. He feels it now, a pounding like drums. He somehow manages to recreate what happened only moments earlier. The man in the carport, the man looking around for Nino. Shibasaki Keito. He knew to come to the house because of Shibasaki Keito.

“Do you know him?” Jun asks, and his eyes are huge, owlish with fear. “Do you know this person?”

Nino’s pacing the room, scratching his arm with his fingernails, shaking his head. “No, no I don’t know anyone named Ohno. You’re absolutely sure that’s what he called himself?”

“Ohno. He said Ohno.” Sho describes the man again, his puffy coat. “He looked…he looked normal, you know. He didn’t look like a bad person.”

“What are we going to do?” Jun asks, his voice almost hysterically, comically high.

“If he comes by again, we should call the cops,” Sho thinks out loud, but Nino barks out a laugh.

“You’re kidding right? You’re funny, Sho-chan.”

“He knows your god damn name!” Jun shouts. “This is on you!”

“I don’t even fucking know this person!” Nino shouts back.

“Well he left,” Sho says, trying to defuse the bomb set to explode in their living room any minute. “Maybe he bought it, that he had the wrong place. It’s over.”

Nino’s laughing now. “It’s not over. Fuck. Of course it’s not over…”

Sho’s just completed his first week of work. He’s finally feeling human again, useful. Earning his own way. The decision they’ve made, the decision about the money, makes him realize that they’ll never be safe, never again so long as they’re in this house.

“We could look for another place,” Sho suggests quietly.

“If this guy has my name, it doesn’t matter where we go,” Nino mumbles, and Jun catches Sho’s eye. The implication in Jun’s look speaks volumes. Then you don’t have to come with us, Jun’s saying. Ohno only knows _your_ name.

But what if he doesn’t? What if he knows the names Matsumoto Jun and Sakurai Sho, too?

“There’s a shop in Akiba,” Nino says calmly a few moments later. “Camera equipment, monitors. I’ll get them installed.”

“You really will electrocute yourself this time,” Jun complains. “That’s all wiring.”

“I’ll do it right,” Nino asserts. “We’ll put them outside the house. Can get motion detector lights. I’m good at this.” He’s still scratching his arm, too hard, leaving streaks from his nails. “I’m good at this.”

Why all this trouble when they should just leave? Now that this guy has Nino’s name, Sho thinks, Nino should get the hell out of Tokyo. He’s got the money for it. But he thinks of the Nino he’s known from the start, the Nino who feels most comfortable locked up in his room. He’s allowed this house to turn into the castle he needs to defend, one of his games come to life.

And it might get him hurt. Or worse.

—

Jun informs them a few days later that he’s waiting tables at a cafe, and when Sho pulls up the place on a map, it’s in Yokohama, further from the house than even Sho’s new job. It’s a warning shot, fired to get a reaction. Jun will spend a huge chunk of his paycheck getting to and from the place, unless of course they move.

Nino doesn’t react at all. He simply lays out receipt after receipt for the things he’s purchased. Sho comes home from work now and Jun’s not back yet. Nino’s in his room, and instead of moaning women or victory music, it’s the sounds of how-to videos. There are tools strewn all across the living room, wires in heaps, a clump of boxes in the hall that apparently have monitors inside so they can see who’s approaching the house 24/7.

Sho starts paying Jun’s share and his own to Nino for all the equipment he’s buying. If Nino knows Sho is doing this, he doesn’t say anything.

“How’s the new job working out? Becky hopes it’s not too boring for someone smart like you.” Aiba texts him. “You should come by for dinner. You should bring your Jun.”

He says maybe next week, or the week after. Jun’s just started a new job, after all, things are busy. 

One night Sho comes home, having contented himself with the texts Jun’s sent him during his break and while Sho was on the train. Rowdy high school kids, middle-aged women in too much make-up. How he hopes Sho doesn’t mind if he smells like greasy food. He manages to unlock the door, and as soon as he’s out of the genkan and into the living room, Nino’s bedroom door opens.

He looks smaller, and Sho can tell he’s losing weight. Sho wonders how often he eats. His eyes have always been tired, raccoon-like, purple circles from not sleeping enough. They’re worse now, bloodshot. But he’s smiling so bright that Sho doesn’t want to nag him. “Sho-chan, I saw you coming. Look, come here. Look.”

His cold fingers wrap around Sho’s wrist, and for the first time in weeks Sho is invited into the inner sanctum, Nino’s bedroom. Where the bed ought to be, there’s just boxes, foam peanuts, instruction manuals. Wires. More wires. But the monitors are set up, the ones that have been in the hall. Nino’s unboxed them, stacked them, hooked them all up. There’s six of them right now. The carport, the front entryway, kitchen door, other points around the house. They’re not the most advanced by any means, but Nino’s so proud of himself.

“I saw you coming,” Nino says again, patting his monitors proudly. “We have nothing to worry about.”

And then he’s darting off, past Sho, quick on his feet like a fox. There are new receipts on the table, and Sho doesn’t even ask what he’s bought this time. “Jun and I can pay you in the morning, how’s that? I’ll tell him what it’s for.”

Nino grins at him, drowning in his too-big sweatshirt. During a break at work that day, Sho had checked a news site. The chain of net cafes shuttered its doors three weeks ago. Nino’s been out of work for three weeks and hasn’t said a word about it to him or Jun. 

“Of course, of course,” Nino says, wrapping a thin arm around Sho’s back. “I know you’re good for it. You’ve been pretty good lately.”

Alarm bells sound in Sho’s head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you haven’t been spending much,” Nino says. He fishes around in the front pocket of his sweatshirt, looking like an emaciated kangaroo. He unfolds a sheet of paper that’s almost falling apart. Across the top of the paper are three names, split into columns. Ninomiya. Matsumoto. Sakurai. And then beneath, the numbers.

“See, Sho-chan, see here,” Nino says, his finger skimming down the Sakurai column. Sho sees each deduction, each new update. It’s down to the very last yen. And it’s accurate. “See, you’ve been good, but Jun-kun got some more of that cream he thinks is going to make him look 20 again. He’s fooling himself, but we love him just the way he is, tell him that.”

Sho sees how much quicker the Matsumoto total is going down. Even with Sho paying Jun’s share of the housing expenses, Jun’s not shy about spending. He’s already down below 15 million of his 21 million yen in a matter of weeks. He’s told Sho he’s “put some” in the bank for safe keeping, but that’s a lot more than some.

“Nino, are you counting our money?” Sho asks, even though he already knows the answer. Sho hasn’t done so much as glance at the north or south corners of the attic. He’s only taken what he’s needed from under the blanket in the east.

“I’m not taking it,” Nino says, face completely honest and open. “I just didn’t know if you were keeping track, so I thought it would help you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s…it’s okay,” Sho says, even though it’s not.

“I’ll stop,” he insists, tearing the piece of paper up right in front of Sho. The pieces fall like snow to the living room floor while other bits stick against Nino’s sweatshirt. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

“Your monitors,” Sho says, his stomach in knots. “You did a good job.”

Nino smiles again. “I think so too. Let that Ohno come back. He won’t come in. I’ll see him coming.”

He vanishes back into his room a short time later, and when Jun comes in the door, he finds Sho crouched down on the floor picking up the bits of paper Nino had torn up.

“Fourteen million, eight hundred and six thousand,” Sho says, getting to his feet. “Give or take.”

Jun’s confused. “Hello to you too.”

“It’s how much money you have left upstairs,” Sho replies quietly. He steps closer, putting a hand on Jun’s shoulder. “Nino’s counting.”

Jun doesn’t even know what to say, crossing his arms and staring blankly for several scary moments. There’s something wrong with Nino, Sho knows it and Jun has to know it, but what can they do? What the hell can they do?

He waits until they’re in Jun’s room, teeth brushed and getting ready for bed. Sho’s in here half the time now, if only because work has cut back on the hours they have together. He tells Jun all about the monitors, about the new receipts on the table.

“I’ve jotted down some places. I was looking last night,” Jun says once they’ve got the lights out, on their backs staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know what you want. Two bedrooms, one bedroom…don’t feel like you have to say yes to one bedroom so soon, I’m not…”

“Did you not hear a thing I just told you? He’s not eating. He’s not sleeping…”

“And he’s counting our money. He’s going up there, and he’s putting his paws all over it, and how do you even know he’s telling the truth? How do you know he isn’t pilfering from us? A few hundred here, a few thousand there.”

“Jun…”

“He was bullied. In high school,” Jun says quietly. “So was I, and I’m sure you can guess why. But Nino, he was smarter than all of them, and they didn’t like it. They beat the shit out of him, all the time, until he stopped coming. They all seemed to forget about it when they sent out the invites to the reunion. I found him outside, smoking. Neither of us actually went inside. I remembered him, the kid they tortured. And he remembered me for the same thing.”

“He’s not well.”

“I don’t think he has been, for a long time,” Jun admits, and Sho shuts his eyes. 

“We can’t leave him.”

“I know that.”

“But you still want to.” Sho turns onto his side, brushing his fingers along Jun’s arm. “You told me that you weren’t the person you wanted to be. Is that still true?”

“I don’t even know anymore.” He lets out a slow, shuddering breath. “Are you?”

Sho doesn’t know either.


	4. Chapter 4

They keep working. Jun at the cafe, Sho at Emerald Pet Friends, Nino at improving their security. When Sho and Jun arrive home from work now, there are printouts on the table in the living room. Status updates from the monitors Nino has in his room, documenting who has come by the house that day. With photographs, still images from the cameras. Nino has scrawled a question on the printout in his minuscule handwriting.

“Are any of these Ohno? Please tell me.”

Sho looks at the printout, at the mailman obliviously dropping letters in the box, at a woman jogging past who stopped to check the time on her watch. People walking by on their way to or from the main road. A delivery van parked across the street. No Ohno, not in any of the pictures.

Nino has installed locks on the inside of his bedroom door, on his windows. They hear at least three of them unlock before the door can open these days, and only so he can use the bathroom. Jun suspects he might start pissing in bottles one of these days so he can go even longer without coming out. He’s offered to perform “expert” installations in Jun’s room, in Sho’s. They’ve declined. DVDs on carpentry arrive, new monitors with the green glow of night vision. The boxes are in the living room when Sho leaves for work and have disappeared when he returns.

When Sho goes into the attic, he always folds his blanket a certain way so he can check and see if Nino’s moved it. It hasn’t been shifted in the last week or so. He finds himself going upstairs at Jun’s insistence now, every few days, taking a few stacks of bills and depositing them in his checking account. If Nino’s tracking these deductions, he doesn’t inform Sho.

—

He and Jun sign a lease on a two-bedroom apartment three stops away from Emerald Pet Friends on a Saturday morning in the beginning of March. Spring is coming. A fresh start. They’re welcome to move in from the first of April. On Sho’s insistence, they’ll tell Nino now rather than when they start packing. They arrive home, at least four cameras pointed at them as they unlock the front door.

They enter the house and Jun punches in the seven-digit code on the new security system Nino installed as a “Valentine’s Day Present” and paid for with his own money. They hang their jackets, slip out of their shoes. “Nino!” Sho calls, making noise by shaking the plastic bag he’s got in his hand. “We brought some leftovers. That bakery you like.”

When there’s no response, Jun sighs, heading to Nino’s bedroom door. For the first time in a long time, there’s no sound coming from inside. Maybe he’s sleeping. Jun knocks anyway. “Get your ass up, there’s croissants.”

No response.

Silently, Jun points up. Sho nods, taking the step stool from its usual resting place just inside Sho and Nino’s bathroom. He gets on and reaches up, only to remember his keys are in the bowl in the genkan. But then Jun’s there, holding out his own. Sho uses it to unlock it, then steps down. Jun moves the stool aside while Sho pulls down the stairs.

“Hey Nino, you up here?” He climbs up, looks around in the shadows from the top stair. A pile of money under a blanket to the north, an exposed and smaller pile of money to the south. Sho’s blanket and money in the east. “Nino?” There’s a bunch of empty boxes up here. So many have come to the house in recent weeks that Nino’s taken to storing them up here rather than breaking them all down and putting them out to be recycled. “You playing hide and seek up here?”

No response.

Sho comes down the stairs, shrugging.

“Not here?” Jun asks, completely surprised.

“Unless he’s in a box,” Sho says. “Do you want me to check?”

There’s a rather happy look in Jun’s eyes. “No. No, I don’t want you to.”

Sho barely manages to get the stairs pushed up and locked again before Jun’s pulling him down the hall to his own room. Where’s Nino? Jun could care less right now, and as soon as Jun’s got them in his room, shutting the door, Sho finds himself not caring much either. Fresh air would do Nino a world of good.

They’ve been quiet. For weeks now they’ve been quiet, respectful of their housemate. Sho’s wanted to shout, to cry out, to give Jun a firm reminder of how good it feels when they fuck, but they’ve just been oh so quiet.

He’s on his hands and knees, fingers scrambling to hold tight to the sheets. He’s not quiet and neither is Jun when they come together, when Jun’s slowly pushing in, slipping away, nails digging in to Sho’s hips and pulling him back against his cock, making Sho’s body do the work, taking him in again and again. Unrelenting, Sho’s crying out with almost every motion, every time Jun yanks him back. Far rougher than their usual. They haven’t even taken their shirts off, more preoccupied with satisfying themselves below the waist, and Sho tries not to laugh when he can feel the tickle of Jun’s shirt brushing against his ass with each punishing stroke.

Sho hears a creaking sound. A floorboard maybe.

“Wait,” he says, and it takes him saying it a couple of times for Jun to emerge from his possessive haze, stopping with a hand to Sho’s back.

“What?” Jun asks. He’s thoughtful enough to slowly ease himself out, and Sho groans at the feeling, already missing him. “Was it too much? I’m sorry…”

Sho moves onto his back, curious. It would be comical, the sight of Jun before him clad in nothing but a t-shirt and a condom, pupils so dilated his eyes look black. But it’s not. Soon he’s leaning forward, pressing gentle kisses to Sho’s thighs in seeming apology, heading for his cock, and as good as Jun’s mouth is, Sho stills him with a little smack to the head.

“Ssh, stop,” Sho says, and this time when there’s a creak he knows that Jun hears it too.

It’s coming from upstairs. Like footsteps.

“I thought you said he wasn’t there,” Jun whispers.

“He wasn’t,” Sho whispers back. “I didn’t see him.”

“What do you want to do?” Jun asks.

Sho’s uneasy, hesitant. He has no doubt that Nino’s up in the attic, walking around. “Well…he already knows we’re here.” He moves, getting up to lean back on his elbows. “Were you trying to make it so I’ll never walk again, Matsumoto?”

“Always so honest. That’s why I like you,” Jun says, and Sho knows he’s not going to perform for an audience. The bed dips and Jun’s slipping off his condom, grabbing some tissue from the nightstand. But he does come back to Sho, this time pulling the blankets up to cover them.

It’s warm, the smell of Jun’s sweat and his own mingling under the covers. “I don’t like this,” Jun grumbles.

“Won’t be like this much longer.”

They’re quiet for a few moments, and they hear a few more steps up in the attic, nowhere near Jun’s room thankfully.

Jun reaches out, pulls Sho’s face to his and kisses him, with a gentleness that’s reassuring. Sho kisses back, finding Jun’s arm, stroking.

“I was so fucking close too,” Jun complains, and Sho knows that Nino can probably hear him laugh, so loud and obnoxious Jun eventually pushes his hand over his mouth. “It’s not that funny.”

Jun lets out a little grunt of surprise when Sho reaches between them, finds Jun’s cock. Despite the interruption, it’s not long before Sho’s got him hard again. They must look ridiculous, two men in their thirties buried under the blankets. “Sho-kun,” Jun’s muttering though, so needy that it won’t take much.

“What do you want?”

“To be alone,” he answers.

“It’s just you and me, okay? Just you and me right now.” And it’s so hot, so stuffy, and awkward as hell, but Sho fumbles around under the blankets, gets himself between Jun’s legs. He can smell, taste latex when he takes Jun’s erection in his hand, circles the slick head of his cock with his tongue, praying he doesn’t go astray and lick the fucking sheets.

Jun misses, trying to reach for Sho under the blankets. Sho gets a hard poke to his shoulder before Jun finally finds his head, pushing. “Now,” Jun begs him. “Now.” He’s barely got Jun halfway in his mouth before he’s coming, groaning as Sho diligently takes it in, swallows it down. 

Sho surfaces, pushing the blankets aside. He thrills in the euphoric glow, the slight shame in Jun’s face. He pokes, tracing Jun’s brow, his dark sideburns, along his jaw. His chin, the arch of his mouth, the way his lips pucker a little to cover his overbite. When Sho was at his lowest, Jun found him. Came sauntering across that bar and where he could have taken advantage, he chose not to. Whatever happens, he refuses to let Jun go. 

Except right now.

“I’m going to check on Nino.”

Jun opens his eyes, frowns. “Fuck him.”

Sho sighs. “Maybe I can get him to eat.”

“Whatever.”

Jun, sated for now, doesn’t offer any other complaints when Sho gets up, cleans himself a bit, tugs his clothes back on. He probably smells like lube and sex, but he doesn’t much care, opening Jun’s door and closing it behind him. On the living room floor, Jun’s attic key gleams in the sunlight. They dropped it there, when they thought they were alone.

He picks up the key, gets the step stool. This time when he pulls down the stairs, he doesn’t stop at the top. He sees a glow this time, near the blanket covering the north pile of money. Beneath it he finds Nino and his laptop, tossing the blanket aside. For some reason, Sho almost expects him to be watching porn, jacking off because he accidentally overheard what was happening downstairs.

Instead Nino’s laptop screen is divided up into multiple boxes. Each mirrors one of the cameras he has set up downstairs.

“You should have said that you were home. You heard us come home.”

Nino looks up, and with only the glow from his laptop his face is blue. Like he’s dead.

“Sorry Sho-chan, I was taking a nap.”

“Up here?”

“I come up here,” Nino explains, setting the laptop down. “To think sometimes.”

“We thought you went out.”

“I’d have left you a note,” Nino says, sighing. “I’m very good about leaving notes. I should tell you though. I should tell you this.”

Sho sits down, crossing his legs. He can smell Jun, on his skin, on his clothes. And here he is, up in the attic with Nino, who might have gone off the deep end and they aren’t doing shit to help him.

“What should you tell me?”

“Ohno was here, it had to be him. Based on your description. Here, hold on.” 

Nino gets to his feet, and he tugs something out from his money pile. It’s a battery-powered camp light, and when he turns it on, the whole attic is illuminated. There’s way more boxes than Sho knew about before. There’s also, he discovers in horror, an air mattress and pillow, empty soda bottles, empty bags of chips. Nino’s up here a lot more than they’ve realized.

He messes with his laptop, rewinding some footage. “Here, Sho-chan, is it this guy? He’s not so tough.”

Nino cues the playback, and there’s someone in the neighbor’s yard. They left for vacation, the neighbors, just the other day. They’re not home. Sho doesn’t want to know how many cameras Nino has pointing at the neighbors in addition to their own house. And when Nino zooms in, the person is standing on a lawn chair with binoculars so he can see over the fence, stopping to jot things down on a notepad. It’s Ohno, Sho would remember him anywhere.

“What’s he doing?” Sho asks, feeling ill.

“Casing the joint,” Nino says. “You know. Watching us. But he won’t get in. He can’t get in.”

“How long has he been there?”

“This is the third day. He’s been watching for a few hours a day, this man.”

Sho almost wants to hit him. “Three fucking days?”

Nino, oblivious, rewinds the footage. “He watches when you and Jun-kun leave for work, writes down when you get back. Nobody else can see him since he’s back there. The other neighbors, the ones on the other side, they have a tree. But I can see him. He’s followed Jun-kun to the train a few times. Quietly.”

“Nino!”

Nino ignores him, smearing his finger across his screen. “I’m telling you, he can’t get in. I’ve made it so he can’t come in. All you have to do is stay here, and you’re safe as I am.” He gestures to his money. “Look, I can show you some receipts.”

Instead Sho gets to his feet. “Is he there? Is he still there right now?”

Nino messes with his footage. “Ah. Yes. Yeah, he’s there.”

Sho heads for the exit.

“Wait, let me show you this. I installed this yesterday, and it’s working.” Before Sho can go down the stairs, Nino tugs them back up, effectively trapping them. “Look.” Sho watches, stunned, as Nino shows him a new locking mechanism. Sho hadn’t seen it when he’d come up before. Nino has installed some sort of catch that locks the stairs from the inside. He’s wearing the key for it around his neck on a thin chain. “It’s so if I want to sleep, nobody can bother me. Even if this Ohno comes in, this is a different lock. Even if he has the key for the other side, he can’t come in. He can’t take our money.”

Sho shuts his eyes, counts to five. He doesn’t know if he’s terrified or angry or both. “Can I please go downstairs, Nino?”

“Oh, of course, Sho-chan.” Nino unlocks the stairs and they slowly release down. They’re close to silent now.

Sho hurries down them, and without prompting, Nino pulls them up. He hears the lock click on the other side.

He goes back to Jun. Without an explanation, he says “Stay here and wait until I come back. We’re getting out of here. Tonight.”

—

Ohno doesn’t seem all that surprised to see him when Sho enters the neighbor’s yard, approaches him.

“Why are you here?” Sho asks.

Ohno bows his head, almost deferential. “I’ve been hired by the people who employed Shibasaki Keito-san. I’m a private investigator.” He even hands Sho a business card. Ohno Satoshi, Investigative Services.

“Do you know anything about the people who hired you?”

Ohno shrugs. “Irrelevant.”

Sho gets up close, stunned by how unflappable the guy is when Sho grabs hold of his jacket sleeve. “Leave us alone. Stop watching us.”

“Your other roommate, that’s Ninomiya. I haven’t seen him yet. I’ve been asked to provide information on all three of you.” Ohno’s little mouth becomes a sour little grin. “He has to come out sometime, right? Hikikomori type?”

“And what else?”

Ohno shrugs again. “That would be in violation of my contract for this assignment.”

Sho tugs the man closer, furious. “Shibasaki Keito-san was a bad man. And so are the people he worked for.”

“It’s not my place to have an opinion about that.”

“How much are they paying you? What can I give you to leave us alone?”

Ohno perks up a bit at that, shifting his weight and detaching himself from Sho’s grasp smoothly. “My employers said they were stolen from. It would be…I don’t know, kind of weird for you to pay me with that stolen money.”

Sho crosses his arms. “Weird but not impossible?” He’s all but confirmed it for Ohno now. Yes, Keito-san was here. Yes, Keito-san left money that he apparently had stolen here. And yes, they’re using it now.

“Turning my back on an employer and breaking a contract doesn’t bode well for my business,” Ohno says. “Especially if they’re as, ah, bad as you say they are.” Ohno’s smile pisses Sho off. “I’m just trying to get by. Aren’t we all, Sakurai-san?”

“What do you propose?”

“I’ll take twenty million for my notepad,” Ohno says. He opens it, lets Sho look through it. Dates and times that Sho leaves for work. Dates and times that Jun leaves for work. Where they’re spending money and how much. There’s weeks’ worth of stuff in here. Information about the high school where Sho used to work, about his new job. About his friends, about Aiba and his wife.

“And if I buy your notepad, what does it get us?”

“I tell my employer that I could not confirm you had the money in the house. I give them only basic details about you, try to imply you guys are a waste of time.” Ohno is firm when he speaks again. “But I’m not going to get you off the hook, if that’s what you’re expecting. They may stop sniffing around based on what I say, they may not. But anything in this notepad is yours.”

Sho hesitates, seeing the name Aiba Masaki. Aiba’s address. Fuck, the guy even has it noted down when Aiba and Sho went shopping that one day. What they bought, how much they spent. This Ohno has been watching them for ages. He points to Aiba’s name in the notepad. “You won’t say anything about my friend?”

“No. I was only attempting to determine if you had further accomplices. It was for my employer to investigate further.”

“Do you swear?” Sho asks, his voice breaking. He doesn’t care much about any of the information that’s about himself. But Aiba’s had nothing to do with this, with any of this. The thought of Aiba coming to harm for something Sho’s done, it sickens him. “Do you swear you won’t say anything?”

“Twenty million.” Ohno snatches the notepad back from Sho, turns to the last page. He scribbles down an address and rips out the page, hands it over. “Cash please. I’ll meet you here at midnight tonight. After that, I suggest you skip town. As you said, Sakurai-san, these are bad men.”

Sho’s about to lose it. Just that morning, he and Jun signed their lease. Paid their deposit and key money. And now they have to come up with twenty million. 

Twenty million from what Nino’s got locked up in the attic with him.

—

Jun’s standing under the attic stairs, arms crossed. “You need to let us come up.”

“I’m sorry,” comes Nino’s voice, muffled but audible. “But Sho-chan is getting extorted. And besides, he didn’t ask us if it was okay. This Ohno-san seems to be a shady character. Twenty million and Keito-san’s friends will probably still give us trouble.”

“Well we don’t need your money,” Jun protests, shouting at the ceiling. “Between me and him, we’ll be protecting your crazy ass too!”

“You’re not a very equal partner, Matsumoto-san. After all the times Sho-chan’s paid for you, for your expenses in the upkeep of security here in this house. And now you’re going to use mostly his money again.” Nino is quiet for a moment. “Jun-kun, he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he? Not a client?”

Sho pounds on the wall with his fist. “I don’t care about any of that! Stop fighting!”

Jun leans back against the wall, shuts his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s furious, staring at Sho. “What the fuck are we supposed to do?” he whispers.

“Your kind and friendly approach is obviously not working,” Sho hisses back. He gestures for Jun to go down the hall. “Let me talk to him, alright?”

Jun goes to his room and slams the door. Sho waits a minute or two before trying again. He goes and gets his key, the footstool. “Nino.”

He hears footsteps creak across the floor, almost directly overhead.

“Nino, when you installed the lock for the stairs, you gave us each a key. You’ve kept things fair, from the very beginning. You document all your expenses very clearly. So I was curious why you’re the only one with a key to the inside lock?”

He hears the floorboard creak again.

“Shouldn’t there be three keys, Nino? To be fair?”

He hears Nino’s key turn in the new lock, backs up when the staircase comes down. Nino pokes his head down, staring at Sho. “Just you.”

Despite his fear, he climbs the steps and lets Nino close it again, lock it after him. He heads to the east, pulls up his blanket.

Nino’s typing on his laptop. “You still have over sixteen million. That’s a lot of money, Sho-chan, especially if you’re going to be moving soon.”

He turns, seeing that Nino clearly knows. He can see the hurt in Nino’s eyes, a deep and cutting pain that makes Sho feel horrible. “We were going to tell you. Today.”

“You should clear your browser history,” Nino says with a heartbreaking smile. “Seems like a nice neighborhood.”

“It is,” Sho mumbles. Not that it matters, once Keito-san’s employers have his name and Jun’s.

“I knew he was right to trust you,” Nino continues, and Sho wishes he’d stop smiling, even with the tears in his eyes. “I knew Jun-kun was right to trust you. You take care of him. He and I, we…well, we’re very similar. We needed someone to rescue us, for so long. Although I guess I had to rescue myself.” He sets his laptop down, uncovers his money pile. “Here, let me give you some from mine.”

“Nino, no, I’ll take care of it…”

But he’s already counting money out, putting it in a plastic convenience store bag. “I still think you’re pretty dumb to trust that Ohno-san. How do you know he doesn’t have eighty notepads full of information about us? You’re really safest here, but you’re both stubborn, the two of you.”

“Then why help us?”

Nino takes the handles of the bag, ties them in a knot. He tosses it Sho’s way. Throughout all of this, even with how insane his words sound, his voice has been so calm, so relaxed. “Because you’re a good person. Call the police, you kept saying. We can’t do this, you kept saying. Maybe you were right.”

He wants to tell Nino that he’s not. That he’s not good, that he’s gone along with everything. That he’s taken and spent the money as easily as they have. As Jun told him once, you do it because it’s easy. 

Nino unlocks the stairs, allows Sho to count and carry his money downstairs where Jun’s got duffel bags ready - they’ll have one or two for the money for Ohno and the rest will be everything they can manage to take with them. In the morning, they’ll cancel the apartment contract in Yokohama, get their money back. Sho will resign from Emerald, Jun will quit the cafe. He’s not quite sure how he’ll explain things to Aiba, not yet, but if he’s at Emerald, it means Aiba and his wife are still connected to him. They’re still vulnerable.

He’s not sure where they’ll end up, or how long they’ll have to run. But they can’t stay here.

Once he has the money gathered, he and Jun start to pack. It’s after 6:00 PM when Nino pulls up the attic stairs, locks it up tight. The only cash still up there belongs to him.

—

It’s just after 10 PM when the power goes out. He and Jun are just about to pack up the car, and this is just one more thing to deal with. Sho moves to the living room window, peeks through the blinds. All the other houses on the block have at least one light on. The street lights are on too.

“Damn it,” Sho says.

“Bet it’s all those stupid fucking cameras and everything else he’s got sucking up the electricity.” Sho hears Jun trip over something, stumbling across the floor. His voice is further away, in the hall when he next speaks up. Nino hasn’t even come downstairs since Sho took the money. “Hey! What the hell are you doing up there?”

“What do we do?” Sho asks, fumbling his way through the living room, finding the couch.

“Circuit breaker,” Jun replies, sighing when Nino offers no reply. “Flip the switches.”

“Will I electrocute myself?”

Jun laughs. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it. It’s in the kitchen. Just…just stay there before you fall and crack your head open.” 

Sho ignores the command, feels along the wall until he’s in the hallway. He calls up at the ceiling. “You okay up there? You didn’t zap yourself did you? Nino?”

At the very least, he remembers Nino has that camp light. He can still see a hell of a lot better up there than Sho can see down here. He stares up into black, annoyed. 

Something falls to the floor in the kitchen, a metal clang as though Jun’s journey to the circuit breaker has not been a smooth one. “Hey, you alright?” He hears another pot hit the floor, and he laughs. “And I’m the one who’ll fall and crack his head open?”

He feels his way along the wall, and it’s not as dark this way. Not from electric lights, and he can feel breeze. Jun must have unlocked the kitchen door to help him see, the three locks Nino’s insisted on from the start. 

“Jun, what’s going on?” he asks.

In an instant the kitchen door is closed and there’s a slight pop as the lights come back. Sho’s about to scream, but the man who shut the door has his hand over Sho’s mouth before he can. Jun’s on the kitchen floor, on his knees, and a second man has a gun with a silencer to his head.

Jun’s eyes go wide in panic as the man who’s grabbed Sho hauls him away, into the living room. Sho tries to struggle, tries to bite the hand clamped over his mouth. What’s happening? What’s happening? Did Ohno-san…did he tip off Keito-san’s people? No…no, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of making that deal if he was just going to turn around and do this anyhow. Maybe Keito-san’s people were tired of waiting.

The other man drags Jun into the living room, mostly by his hair. That he doesn’t scream, just winces in pain, seems to imply that the guy’s said he’ll get his head blown off for making a fuss. The two men, dressed in black, have ski masks on. Straight out of a movie. Two thugs, please, from central casting.

They force Sho to his knees, toss Jun next to him like a rag doll. Sho’s so scared he can’t gather the energy to be embarrassed by the fact that he’s already pissed himself. He puts up his hands, shaking as he looks from Taller Thug who grabbed him to Bulky Thug who grabbed Jun.

“Where’s the money?” Taller asks. They’ve both got guns, Sho can see this now, and he wants to lean closer to Jun. “Where’s the money?”

Jun holds up one hand, uses the other to gesture to their duffel bags. They broke his glasses, a crack going straight across the lens. Punched him too, there’s blood dripping from his nose. Broken, maybe. There’s blood dripping down onto his lip, onto those moles Sho likes so much.

Taller keeps his gun trained on them while Bulky heads over to check the bags they’ve prepared for Ohno. He unzips it, chuckles. “This can’t be all of it.”

“Spent the rest,” Sho says.

Bulky leaves the bag, grabs Sho and lifts him mostly by his t-shirt. It stretches, tears a little at the collar. He gets socked right in the stomach for his comment, hitting the floor knees first and hard as he doubles over. All he knows is he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, it hurts so much.

“Where’s the rest?” Taller asks. 

“In the bags,” Jun says. “I swear. Don’t hurt him.”

Sho, tears in his eyes and wondering if they’ll shoot first or break bones first or maybe stab them, is almost glad when Bulky leans back, kicking him in the ribs. It hurts like hell, it burns to breathe, but they haven’t kicked Jun. At least they haven’t kicked Jun.

Shut up Jun, Sho thinks. No matter what he says, it won’t matter. These are professionals, and they’ll get what they came for. 

“You’re lying,” Taller says, not even that annoyed. This is probably an average night for him, the worst night of Sho’s and Jun’s lives. Bulky kicks Sho again, and Sho groans, tears rolling down his cheeks, and this time Jun can’t lie. It’s a good thing they’re not secret agents, because they wouldn’t withstand a real interrogation.

Jun’s a mess, sobbing. “Upstairs!”

“Upstairs? Where upstairs?”

When Sho looks up, gasping for air, Bulky and Taller are looking at the living room ceiling for answers. They don’t think to check the hallway behind them. At least not fast enough, because Sho sees that the stairs are down.

“Where upstairs?” Taller demands, and he’s got his gun pointed right at Jun’s face.

Sho can barely move, but they’re not going to shoot Jun. They’ll have to shoot him first. He’s just about to move when Bulky cries out, turning with the knife sticking out of his back, his kidney maybe. 

Before Taller can get a shot off, Nino’s got a different knife buried in his gut, quickly pulls it out, puts it in his neck. In less than fifteen seconds, it’s over and there’s Nino, swimming in his sweatshirt, blood splattered across his face. He picks up their guns, moves them out of their grasp. The men might not be dead, but they will be soon if nothing is done to help them. Bulky’s body is quivering, his fingers trying and failing to reach for the knife sticking from his back.

Sho lies there, burning, burning, his jeans reeking from piss. It hurts. God, it hurts. Jun’s shaking. “Nino…Nino…” he’s babbling.

Nino crouches down at Sho’s side, stroking his bloody fingers through his hair. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Then he gets up and Sho watches Nino lift his foot, using it to push the knife further into Bulky’s back.

—

He had the nurse pull the curtain all the way, blocking everything out save for the window. It’s not the prettiest side of the hospital. He’s looking out onto a part of the roof, all white gravel and humming metal equipment. They have to keep him mostly upright in the hospital bed, and it still hurts. He’s short of breath even now, two days later.

The doctors say he’s pretty lucky. Two broken ribs, but his lungs weren’t punctured, minimal internal bleeding. It hurts to move his arms, to bend, to breathe. They’ll be releasing him tomorrow, and they’ve mostly kept him in this room alone because the investigation’s ongoing.

They haven’t allowed Jun to see him. He’s somewhere with a broken nose, probably with an unattractive bandage on that too pretty face. Sho smiles to think of how much that must annoy him. He needs something to smile about. They’ve probably still got him in and out of the station, interviewing him for hours just like they’ve been interviewing Sho whenever the doctor says it’s fine. They don’t let him talk too long, put more pressure on his chest from talking without interruption.

He stares out the window a while longer before turning his attention to the flowers on the table. One vase from Aiba and the wife, along with a simple bouquet with a card merely signed “O.S.” If that’s the only apology he’s getting from Ohno-san, he supposes it’s enough.

Nino. When Sho thinks of Nino, it’s hard not to cry. Because when he cries, when he sobs, it hurts. It hurts so damn much. It was Nino who called the police, telling them in that calm, steady voice of his that there’d been a break-in at their house, that two intruders had been stabbed. And that, by the way, they’re in possession of stolen money, can they please send some detectives along with the ambulance?

Taller and Bulky are alive. Taller, though, is in a coma. Vegetative state. Bulky will need months of physical therapy to walk again. When either of them are released, they’ll be arrested anyhow. Sho’s been given their real names, but the nicknames are what will stick. The self-defense charge stands. The men were breaking and entering. Sho never says a word about what he saw Nino do, the satisfied look he had when he forced the knife further into that man’s back.

His parents have an incredible lawyer involved, and his father is quite certain Sho will not face jail time. Ninomiya’s locked up, and he’s telling anyone who will listen to him that he coerced Jun and Sho into everything. That he blackmailed them, threatened them about Keito-san, about the money, for months. They’re gay, he’s told the cops, blackmailing queers is a cake walk.

“He’s crazy though,” Sho’s told the lawyer, wincing enough to have the nurse scolding him. “He’s totally crazy. Something’s wrong with him, please listen to me! He needs help!”

“If he passes the psych eval,” the lawyer assures Sho, ignoring his distress, “everything he says will be taken at face value. It can only help you, Sakurai-san. And Matsumoto-san as well.”

Nino’s ensuring that he takes the fall for everything, for every little thing, and Sho doesn’t want him to. “I spent the money too. I went along with it. I never objected,” he tells the lawyer, who sighs in exasperation.

“I better be the last person you say that to,” he says. “For your own sake.”

His parents think Sho’s just been through a lot of trauma. After all this is the first they’re even hearing that Sho lost his job, over a year ago. He’s barely told them a thing, all this time. It doesn’t matter that he has a new job, a new life. They wonder if they should sue the school, have his firing overturned. He stops them, immediately. He doesn’t want their money, not if it means he gets off scot-free after all that he’s done. But he supposes he’ll accept it anyhow, if only because he knows there’s no way he’ll be able to change Nino’s mind.

Aiba comes by for the end of visiting hours that night. He sits in the chair next to Sho’s bed and doesn’t say anything, a rare feat for the chatty teacher. Sho shouldn’t talk, should rest, but he tells Aiba everything, everything from the start. From the bar to the house to the night they dropped that silver case in the lake. The cameras and the locks on the attic and the lights coming back on, Sho finding Jun with a gun to his head.

Aiba listens to all of it, the full story, the full story the lawyers and the police haven’t heard. They’ve gotten the pertinent bits, the stories and chatter that will give Sho and Jun their freedom. That will give Nino some sort of jail time. Stolen money, nobody’s too sure yet what will happen there. They’re still tracing the money, tracing Taller and Bulky, tracing Keito-san, their employers. Trying to unravel the knots. The police are falling over themselves to get a big solve like this.

Sho’s glad that Aiba doesn’t try to convince Sho that it’s not his fault, that he had no choice, that he was in over his head. He just listens, because he’s always been happy to carry these things for Sho. “Where are you going, when they let you out?” Aiba asks.

“I don’t know,” Sho says. He doesn’t even know if his apartment contract in Yokohama is still legitimate. They paid the deposit with Keito-san’s money, the key money with what Sho earned from Emerald. His job with Emerald is, astonishingly, secure. He’s on paid medical leave, and he’s even received a Get Well Soon card from his team. None of them know, of course, about any of it. Becky’s handling it, without complaint, because Sho’s worked hard for her father, even in this short amount of time. And because he’s Aiba’s friend.

“You could stay with us,” Aiba replies. “This time you could get over yourself and say yes.”

He grins at that, trying not to laugh. “I suppose I could.”

“And Jun-san?”

Sho shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s a pull-out couch,” Aiba says. “I think it can fit two.”

—

Nino’s put on a little weight, and his face isn’t so pale. Being on a schedule in a place like this, with set times to sleep, to eat, have almost changed him for the better. He’s being held in minimum security. It’s amazing, the things lawyers can accomplish, the plea deals that can be struck when a defendant is all too happy to confess to things he didn’t do to save his friends.

Nino’s served almost a full year. He’ll do one more, and with good behavior he’ll be out. He isn’t too sure what he plans to do upon release, but there are job programs for people like him, placement options. “Maybe another net cafe,” he says without a note of sarcasm.

Sho apologizes every time he comes to see Nino, and Nino says there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s the same song and dance, the same back and forth each time. 

“It’s really not so bad here,” Nino insists. “I get time for hobbies.”

They give Nino little gadgets, broken alarm clocks, old cellphones, busted lamps. Locks and keys. They let him take them apart, put them back together again. “I’m good at this,” he tells Sho, bragging about something he’s fixed that week. “I’m still really fucking good at this.”

Sho has no idea how Nino managed to convince every shrink he’s seen that he’s sane, that he’s never not been sane, that things simply just “got out of hand” at the house and he nearly got his friends killed. Sho’s wanted to appeal, to confess to what he’s done, but Nino won’t hear of it.

Visiting time is up, and Nino puts the phone receiver they use to chat back. He wiggles his fingers, tapping the glass, and Sho taps back. Then he just waves, vanishing back into his strangely calm life. Jun’s waiting in the car. He got to spend the first half of the visiting time with Nino, and Sho always takes the second half.

They don’t turn the car on, sitting there quietly. Jun doesn’t understand why Nino did what he did either, and the guilt has affected him as much as it has Sho. It’s only been the last few months that together they’ve come to terms with it, accepted it for what it is. They don’t have the apartment in Yokohama, not that specific one, but with their combined income, they’ve moved into a one-bedroom in Kawasaki. They take pride in it because it’s paid for with money they earn, with nobody’s help. Jun’s been promoted at the cafe, and he makes these fancy lattes with decorations in the foam. He tried to teach Sho to do it once, and Sho’s artwork was so atrocious Jun nearly hurt himself laughing.

Some days Sho still wonders just what Jun loves about him. Looking back, their relationship was built on shaky foundations. On lust and secrets, curiosity and the physical. Sho wanted Jun to need him. Sho wanted Jun to need _only_ him. So what did Jun want?

They’ve had to work hard this year, coping with the guilt, the fear. The nightmares where Sho’s in that kitchen seeing the fear in Jun’s eyes before they pull the trigger, the nightmares Jun has where Sho’s the one hurt. Sho’s woken up, hardly able to breathe because he’s back there, reliving it, until Jun takes his hand, talks him back to today. It would be easier to just forget, to just move on. But they’ve both taken the easy road for too long. Instead they talk. They talk a lot. No secrets. It means coping with the memories, with Nino and what he’s done to give them this chance, this life together. 

They can’t take it for granted.

Jun reaches a hand across the seat, brushes a strand of hair away that’s fallen across Sho’s brow. His fingertips brush against the corner of Sho’s eye. “What?” Sho asks, burning up under Jun’s always intense scrutiny.

“You getting more wrinkles here?”

Sho looks at himself in the rearview mirror, fretting suddenly. “Huh? Seriously?”

Jun’s hand wraps gently around Sho’s neck, pulls him in for a kiss that has him wishing they were home, not in the parking lot of a prison. Jun stops, grinning, leaning his forehead against Sho’s. “You get any more wrinkles, I might have to peg you for a guy in his forties.”

“I’m not,” Sho whines helplessly.

Jun presses slow, teasing kisses all over Sho’s face, his mouth. Even if Sho doubts it, even if he still doesn’t believe it sometimes, it’s there. In his voice, in his eyes. Trust. Loyalty. Love.

On some nights, Sho asks Jun if he’s the person he wants to be. Lately, instead of “no,” sometimes he’ll get a “maybe” or even an “almost.” They’re mending. They’re healing. Slowly, and never easy. But always, always worth it.

“Okay,” Jun says, thumb stroking Sho’s chin. “Thirty-nine. And a half.”


End file.
